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Abstract
An analysis is presented of transformations related to local food production and diet in the rural settlement of San Francisco de Asís on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Ethnographic methodologies and a systemic analysis are used to illustrate how in less than 35 years, changes in tenancy and land use have transformed a self-provisioning settlement into a place dependent on the external market. This process has been accentuated by drug trafficking that has weakened traditional economic activities such as agriculture and fishing. Finally, reflections are presented on the scope of food sovereignty in the context of the Darién región of Colombia.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank the Fundación Aurelio Llano Posada of Medellín and the Scientific Society of Latinamerican Agroecology (SOCLA) and the tutorial committee, particularly Gloria Zuluaga and Fernando Funes-Monzote for their reading of the manuscript and suggestions. They wish to express their most sincere recognition to the population of San Francisco de Asís, guardians of the forest and its magic, source of deep learning. They also thank Diana Polanco and Sandra Turbay for reading this article and Cecilia Salas and Federico Ortiz for their support.
FUNDING
The authors thank CODI Universidad de Antioquia for financial assistance in carrying out the half-time research project of Convocatoria 2010, from which this article is derived. Project Sustainability Research Groups 2013–2014 funded by Vicerectoria de Investigación, Universidad de Antioquia.
Notes
1. 1. The impact of drug trafficking has been tackled in Ramírez (Citation2001), who explains the sociocultural dynamics linked with the production and transformation of coca in the western Colombian Amazon and the consequent stigmatization which falls on the inhabitants.
2. 2. Research project: “Rastreo etnobotánico de planta alimenticias silvestres y en desuso. Una estrategia local para el fortalecimiento de la soberanía alimentaria entre los pobladores del corregimiento de San Francisco de Asís, municipio de Acandí-Darién Caribe colombiano” was funded by the Committee for the Development of Research-CODI-University of Antioquia, Medellin (Colombia) 2010–2013: author: Lizeth Álvarez-Salas, PhD, Agroecology, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Antioquia—SOCLA; tutor: PhD, Aida Gálvez-Abadía.
3. 3. This comes from the definition of Food and Agriculture Orangization of the United Nations (Citation2009): “food security is the existence of conditions that allow human beings to have physical and economic access, in a socially acceptable manner to a safe, nutritious diet in accordance with their cultural preferences, which satisfies their alimentary needs and allows them to live in a productive and healthy manner.”.” Thus, from the concepts of food sovereignty proposed by the Vía Campesina: “the right of peoples, communities and countries to establish their own agricultural policies, fishing, food and land that are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropiate to their unique circumstances. This includes the basic right to food and to the resources needed to produce foodstuffs, which means that all peoples have the right to a healthy, nutritious and culturally appropriate food supply and to the capacity to maintain themselves and their societies.” This emphasizes two elements: autonomy for the formulation of policies and the universal right to food. The theoretical discussion of both concepts will not be developed in this article since they lie outside its objectives. (Schejtman and Chiriboga Citation2009).
4. 4. Estudio etnobotánico y agroecológico de las plantas promisorias de uso alimenticio del Darién Caribe Colombiano, rev. Caldasia, Colombia; L. Álvarez, L and A. Galvez (submitted for evaluation April 15, 2013).
5. 5. The name chilapo has entered general use in northeast Colombia to refer to people originating from the Caribbean plains. The term comes from the language of the woodcutters and refers to the parts that remain in a tree trunk after the fine, homogenous central blocks have been removed; they are therefore, unused remnants that despite having contributed to the growth of the tree are considered to be worthless (Molano and Ramírez Citation1996; Gálvez et al. Citation2009).
6. 6. See www.incoder.gov.co
7. 7. “It is an organized social expression, autonomous and in solidarity with the civil society, whose purpose is to promote an integral, sustainable and viable development, constructed by exercising a participatory democracy in the management of development of its affiliates and the community” (Art. 6, Law 743 of 2002; www.medellin.gov.co).
8. 8. “Urban or rural land without buildings or crops that forms part of the patrimony of the state because it lies within territorial limits and lacks any other owner. These areas are imprescriptible, that is to say they are not susceptible to being acquired in the process of ownership by acquisitive prescription of the authorities” (Colombian Law 137 of 1959; http://juridicasnr.blogspot.com /2006/07/ley-tocaima-ley-388-de-1997-artculo.html).
9. 9. An example of this synthesis is as follows: “Doña Alba Chiquillo told me that almost everybody knows that frass from an ants’ nest makes very good fertilizer. It was used a lot for potatoes but it was difficult to get hold of without being bitten by the ants. So Jairo taught people a long time ago that the ortiga (Urtica baccifera) is very good for scaring them off. You make an infusion of ortiga, that’s it, you can’t touch it either because it’ll make your hand swell up, and if you through that onto the frass they’ll all run off it […]. Then you just pick up the frass and fertilize the crop” (45-year-old woman, August 2011).
10. 10. “Conservation scenarios are defined as territories or portions thereof in which various stakeholders coincide in their apprecicstion of the need to develop comnbined actions to maintain, in the long term, predetermined biophysical attributes or ecological processes important for aesthetic, cultural or functional reasons, or of direct advantage” (Hurtado et al. Citation2008, 236).
11. 11. “The network ofreservas plays a very important role in conservation given that: 1) they are centers for the promotion at the local and subregional levels of civil society in conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and consequently are facilitators in the establishment of synergies with the public sector in charge of carrying out conservation actions. 2) They may facilitate the establishment of absorption zones and biological corridors and other connections between fragments and/or protected areas. 3) In some cases they may offer the only possibility of conserving an important locality in areas where it would be difficult to establish protected areas open to the public” (236).
12. 12. Resolution 1502 of August 2005 recognizes a collective territory of 13883 ha 7085m2 to the Community Council of the Rio Tolo Basin and Southern Coastal Zone consisting of 18 localities in the municipality of Acandí. This territory is located on the Panamian border, far from the settlement of San Francisco de Asís located in the coastal zone whose Afrocolombian community set up the Local Afrocolombian Council (Consejo Local de Negritudes) linked to COCOMASUR. The principles of adherence to the community councils are guided by the ethnic parameters of Law 70 of 1993.
13. 13. The constitutional reform of 1991, recognizes the pluriethnic and multicultural character of Colombia; thus it was required to establish judicial tools such that the Amerindian and Afrocolombian groups that set out legal principles concerning the dealings of these groups with the state. Law 70 of 1993 or the law of Afrocolombians: “[…] has the objective of recognizing the Afrocolombian communities who have come to occupy barren lands in the rural riverside zones of the rivers of the Pacific Basin, in accordance with their traditional practices of production, the right to collective property, as presented in the following articles. It also has the goal of establishing mechanisms to protect of the cultural identity and rights of the black communities of Colombia as an ethnic group, and the promotion of their economic and social development, in order to guarantee that these communities obtain the same real conditions of equal opportunities as the rest of Colombian society. […] This law will also apply in the barren, rural and riverine zones that have been occupied by Afrocolombian communities who have traditional practices of production in other areas of the country and satisfy the requirements established by the law” (Article 1; http://www.secretariasenado.gov.co/senado/basedoc /ley/1993/ley_0070_1993.html). The law includes riverine areas of the basins of the rivers Tolo and Acandí which open into the Caribbean Sea although not in the coastal area. However, in the statutes of conformation of the COCOMASUR community council are included——according to the settlers—a strategy to amplify the collective territory to include these zones, a request which was presented to INCODER in 2011. This process delayed the adjudication of private deeds in the zone.
14. 14. Until 2008, one could observe in the study area “[…] a symbolic valuation of the exchanged products and of the activities implicated in the production. For anyone who cultivates their farm and produce fruits and food plants it’s much better to exchange their products with someone who integrally values what is offered given when they pay cash for things. [Cultural tasks] such as sowing, weeding, pruning, fertilizing, harvesting, are actions that are little appreciated by someone who pays money for a coconut, a pineapple, a sietesabores, a borojó […]. The bartering creates an integral link between those who receive it and those who provide it as a gesture of solidarity. The functional dynamics of reciprocity is strengthened by a broadened valuation of the objects, ítems of knowledge and the possible services of exchange […]. Reciprocity is manifested daily and for many it’s the system par excellence” (Salazar Citation2012, 38).
15. 15. The monthly allowance is US $65 and a basic shopping basket of foodstuffs.
16. 16. “The ICBF, seconded to the Ministry of Social Protection, was created in 1968 to respond to problems such as nutritional deficiency, family disintegration and instability, the loss of values and abandoned childhood. The ICBF is present in every one of the departmental capitals, through its regional and sectional offices. It also has 201 zonal centers, as service points to attend to the needs of populations of all the municipalities in the country. Nearly 10 million Colombians currently benefit from its services. Children, young people, adults and families of urban, rural, Amerindian, Afrocolombian, raizal and rom populations, are all beneficiaries of this entity’s programs” (www.ibcf.gov; Gálvez Citation2007, 41).
17. 17. This initiative ran between 1999 and 2009 as an expression of the anti-drug policies of the United States and Colombia. Also called the Plan for Peace, Prosperity and Strengthening of the State, it sought to eradicate illicit crops and substitute them with legal, sustainable economic resources. Local families participating in this process were incorporated without a prior screening process and in the capacity of reinsertados,”, that is, individuals who were formerly members of groups on the margins of the law and now reincorporated into civilian life. Inclusion of the Caribbean Darien of Colombia in these substitution programs was justified by its being seen as a zone that is highly vulnerable to these illegal economies.
18. 18. See www.humboldt.org.co/iavh/documentos/politica/proyectos_de_ley/126-10%20Pesca%20y%20Acuicultura.pdf
19. 19. The banana-growing industry was initiated in Urabá in 1963. Workers drawn from different parts of the country settled in camps set up within the banana plantations. The workforce attracted by the banana industry founded townships near to the plantations, which gave rise to municipalities such as Carepa and Chigorodó (Antioquia) (see Zambrano Citation2004). Leftist groups such as the Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL) and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) led several of these settlement processes. A relationship has also existed between these guerrilla groups and the Sindicato de Trabajadores Agropecuarios de Antioquia (SINTRAINAGRO) and with the Banana Workers’ Union (Sindicato de Trabajadores Bananeros—SINTRABANANO), respectively (C. García Citation1996) and which gave rise to the organized labor wars of the 1980s. The EPL then demobilized and created the political movement Esperanza Paz y Libertad (“Hope, Peace and Freedom”), as well as the leftist movement Unión Patriótica (UP), both now vanished from the political scenario. One of the most infamous massacres was that of the La Chinita plantation, where 35 people linked to SINTRABANANO were assassinated or “encouraged” at the hands of FARC militias. See also Ramírez (Citation2001).
20. 20. This group also has a presence in other neighboring localities of the settlement such as Triganá, Capurganá and Sapzurro
21. 21. Physicochemical analysis was carried out with photometric methods and microbiological analysis by means of techniques in Rice et al. (Citation2012), endorsed by the Colombian Ministry of Social Protection. The tests were performed in the physicochemical analysis area of the Laboratory of Public Health connected to the Faculties of Public Health and Pharmaceutical Chemistry of the University of Antioquia, Medellín.
22. 22. Electrical power in the settlement is provided between five in the afternoon and eleven at night, thanks to an electric generator installed by the Families in Action program and the Acandí Power Company. The generator broke down on numerous occasions, due to the growing demand attributed to the increase in domestic electrical appliances. During the 5 months of fieldwork, the generator had an effective service period of 48 days, working intermittently. This has stimulated the purchase of household electrical generators (72 units by December 2011), kept running daily by the most expensive gasoline in the country: US $ 8.33 per gallon brought from Turbo, while in Medellín a gallon costs US $4.72.