Agricultural practices and household organization in a Japanese pioneer community of lowland Bolivia

Abstract

This article describes the colonization process of the Japanese pioneer farmers in the Bolivian subtropical lowlands. Quantitative data for each of the farm households that can be matched for comparison between the initial phase of colonization and a later phase provide the basis for an examination of a reciprocal relationship between household organization and successively introduced agricultural practices. Two hypotheses are tested: (a) pioneer agriculture stimulates the formation of large family households to cope with an assumed labor shortage; and (b) existing variation in household organization produces variation in agricultural practices. The analysis reveals that the size of swidden farming in the initial phase and the size of permanent field cultivation in the latter phase both relate positively to the size of the male labor force. Despite the significant advantage of a large family household for providing free labor during rapid agricultural growth, a diachronic analysis does not support the hypothesis that the pioneer condition stimulates adaptive social change toward the formation of large families. Rather, the data indicate that changes in household composition have major effects on the size of cropland and the transformation from swidden farming to mechanized cultivation. Underlying mechanisms of agricultural change are further explored, and the implications for a colonization project are discussed.