Examining land rental markets’ linkages to land and water control in Colombia’s irrigation megaprojects: integrating the political economy of agrarian change and the political ecology of vulnerability

ABSTRACT

Land rental markets often accompany irrigation infrastructure development as water availability revalorizes land. Agrarian change scholars critique land rental markets for contributing to capital accumulation. To date, however, this approach has not incorporated the roles of environmental changes induced by irrigation, corresponding social-ecological interactions, and political ecologies of vulnerability. Based on 12 months of research in Colombia’s most expensive land rental market spanning two irrigation megaprojects, this paper demonstrates how land rental markets compound environmental stresses to exclude producers from land- and water-based agricultural livelihoods. The research additionally advances debates of land control, capital’s mobility, and Andean water infrastructure development.

KEYWORDS:

• land rental market
• exclusion
• irrigation
• political ecology of vulnerability
• agrarian change
• Colombia

Acknowledgements

Excellent feedback from two anonymous reviewers, Karl Zimmerer, the Penn State Nature-Society Working Group and the GeoSyntheSES Lab clarified the ideas presented. I am indebted to the generosity and time of the Operations Teams and canal workers at Usocoello and Usosaldaña, as well as to Martha, Cristina and Piedad and other field assistants that worked tirelessly to gather data and connect me to producers. I am humbled by and deeply grateful to the producers who gave their time and expertise to this research. All errors and shortcomings presented here are entirely my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Although Levien (2012) suggests rental markets are often state-backed.

2 Drawing from Burowoy (2001, 270).

3 As all producers are required to enter the WUA offices to schedule water or seeding, there was an extensive and diversified sample selected. Due to histories of and ongoing conflict and violence in this area, administering a door-to-door or randomized sampled survey was not possible. Some parts of the study area had active paramilitary activity and violence during the early 2000s by the Bloque Tolima paramilitary unit. During the period of data collection, communities and individuals in the region received ongoing threats from other paramilitary groups, including the Aguilas Negras.

4 An irrigation megaproject is defined by Colombia’s Rural Agricultural Planning Unit, Unidad de Planificación Rural Agropecuaria, or UPRA, as more than 5,000 ha. For more expansive discussions of megaprojects, see Gutierrez et al. (2019).

5 I found no significant difference between head- and tail-end irrigators.

6 Most rice producers in the region relied primarily on day laborers (jornaleros), whose 2019 daily rate was $40.000 COP ($12 USD) plus lunch. I met a few producers that worked alongside the day laborers. Generally, labor was not supplied by the family, meaning labor was a significant portion of the cost of production.

7 Survey numbers on total acreage and field counts of land rentals here provide an illustration of the dynamism of the institution of land rentals but cannot be understood as absolute numbers. It became apparent and confirmed by irrigation officials, that many survey participants under-reported their field rentals. Some survey participants feared our data would reach the Colombian tax authorities, so may have under-reported.

8 Data from reports from the Gobernación del Tolima entitled “Estadísticas: 2011-2014” for municipalities Espinal, Saldaña and Purificación. Published by the Gobernación del Tolima with support from the Universidad de Ibagué in 2015. Available at www.tolima.gov.co. More recent municipality-level unemployment numbers are not available. There was no gender disaggregated data.

9 For more on the debate on extra-economic coercion, see Hall 2013; Borras et al. 2018, among others.

Additional information

Funding

This research was made possible by funding from the National Science Foundation [grant number DGE1255832] and [grant number BCS-1838402], the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award [grant number P022A180019-001], the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Bogotá, and Penn State’s Department of Geography.

Notes on contributors

Megan Dwyer Baumann

Megan Dwyer Baumann completed her Masters and Doctoral research in human-environment geography at Penn State’s Department of Geography. She undertook this research as a Fulbright-Hays scholar in Colombia with a Research Internship position at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia – Bogotá, Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias.