Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Reconfiguring Agrobiodiversity in the Amazon Estuary: Market Integration, the Açaí Trade and Smallholders’ Management Practices in Amapá, Brazil

  • Published:
Human Ecology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

An established body of literature documents current changes in rural livelihoods, agricultural practices, and agrobiodiversity patterns in smallholder communities across the globe. Contributing to this literature, this paper documents change in agricultural practices and agrobiodiversity patterns in a tidal floodplain settlement in Amapá, Brazil, where in recent years farmers increasingly devote their attention to the production of açaí fruits, an important regional crop with strong local, national and international markets. Research results indicate that farmers are abandoning subsistence production in annual fields to make room for açaí-dominated agroforests. At the same time, farmers are diversifying home gardens, and as a result conserve a portion of the crop diversity once maintained in annual fields in these areas. Agrobiodiversity documented in home gardens is much higher than previously recorded in the study area, and is equal or higher than previously reported in home gardens in other less-market integrated Amazonian communities. Research points to the need for innovative methods to document agrobiodiversity patterns in today’s modifying landscapes and for the historical analysis of such patterns to avoid presumptions that observed changes are unilateral and unidirectional.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Deagrarianization refers to the process by which smallholder farmers shift livelihood activities away from rural enterprises and incorporate wage labor and other non-farm activities and income into household production, strategies widely observed across the global south over the past 15 years (Bryceson et al. 2000).

  2. Ribeirinhos are rural peoples of Amazonia who live along or near waterways in areas of floodplain.

  3. For a history of the Mazagão colony see Vidal (2008). Because of its historical occupation process, the Carvão-Mutuacá site is considered a Quilombo community (see below for a definition of Quilombo).

  4. The term Quilombolo emerged during Portuguese colonialism to describe settlements formed by slaves living outside of bondage under various conditions. Today the concept has broadened and now includes diverse contemporary groups of African descent living in different social conditions and geographical areas in Brazil. Today, Quilombo communities or remnant Quilombo communities are broadly defined as self-identifying ethnic groups with specific historical trajectories marked by a resistance to oppression; many groups’ histories are linked to a specific piece of land or territory of which they have traditionally occupied. Quilombolo or Quilombola refers to a resident of a Quilombo community. (Document: Decree Number 4887 of Article 68 of the 1988 Brazilian constitution; Almeida 1996; Arruti 2006; Rappaport Center 2008). The 1988 Brazilian constitution in Article 68 guarantees descendents of Quilombo communities the right to legal tenure of their lands. Since the passing of the 1988 constitution, social movements centered on the question of Quilombo rights to land and access to services have gained momentum throughout Brazil, and in Amapá have particularly strengthened over the last 15 years. It should be noted that the definition of what constitutes a Quilombo community or group is ever-evolving and changes depending upon the context within which the concepts are being discussed.

  5. In contrast to this case study, WinklerPrins (2002), WinklerPrins and de Souza (2005), and Murrieta and WinklerPrins (2006) discuss home gardens as spaces primarily managed by women.

  6. For a detailed account of the management of pau mulato in the Mazagão region of Amapá see Sears (2003).

References

  • Adams, C., Munari, L. C., Van Vliet, N., Murrieta, R., Piperata, B. A., and Futemma, C. (2012). Diversifying incomes and losing landscape complexity in Quilombola shifting cultivation communities of the atlantic rainforest (Brazil). Human Ecology 41: 119–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adams, C., Murrieta, R., and Neves, W. (eds.) (2006). Sociedades Caboclas Amazônicas: Modernidade e Invisibilidade. Annablume, São Paulo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Almeida A.W. (1996). Quilombos: Sematologia face a novas identidades. In: Frechal Terra de Preto. SMDDH/CCN-PVN, São Luis, pp.11-22

  • Alexiades, M. (1996). Collecting ethnobotanical data: An introduction to basic concepts and techniques. In Alexiades, M., and Sheldon, J. W. (eds.), Selected Guidelines for Ethnobotanical Research: A field manual. The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, pp. 53–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, A., and Ioris, E. M. (1992). The logic of extraction: Resource management and income generation by extractive producers in the Amazon estuary. In Redford, K., and Padoch, C. (eds.), Conservation of Neotropical forests: Working from traditional resource use. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 175–202.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arruti, J. M. (2006). Mocambo: Antropologia e história do processo de formação quilombola. Edusc, São Paulo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernard, H. R. (2000). Handbook of methods in cultural anthropology: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Altamira Press, Walnut Creek.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brondizio, E. S., and Siqueira, A. D. (1997). From extractivists to forest farmers: Changing concepts of caboclo agroforestry in the Amazon estuary. Research in Economic Anthropology 18: 234–279.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brondizio, E. S., Safar, C., and Siqueira, A. D. (2002). The urban market of açaí fruit (Euterpe oleracea Mart.) and rural land use change: Ethnographic insights into the role of price and land tenure constraining agricultural choices in the Amazon estuary. Urban Ecosystems 6: 67–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brondizio, E. S. (2004). From staple to fashion food: Shifting cycles, shifting opportunities in the development of the Açaí fruit (Euterpe oleracea Mart.) economy in the Amazon estuary. In Zarin, D., Janaki, R., Alavalapati, R., Francis, E., Putz, F. E., and Schmink, M. (eds.), Working forests in the American tropics: Conservation through sustainable management? Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 348–361.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brondizio, E. S. (2008a). The Amazonian caboclo and the açaí palm: Forest farmers in the global market. New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brondizio, E. S. (2008b). Agriculture intensification, economic identity, and shared invisibility in Amazonian peasantry: Caboclos and Colonists in comparative perspective. In Adams, C., Murrieta, R. S. S., Neves, W. A., and Harris, M. (eds.), Amazon peasant societies in a changing environment: Political Ecology, Invisibility and Modernity in the Rainforest. Springer Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 181–214.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brookfield, H., Padoch, C., Parsons, H., and Stocking, M. (eds.) (2002). Cultivating biodiversity: Understanding, analysing and using agricultural diversity. ITDG Publishing, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brush, S. (1992). Labor specialization and the formation of markets and biological diversity in Andean potato agriculture. Human Ecology 20: 435.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brush, S. (1995). In situ conservation of landraces in centers of crop diversity. Crop Science 35: 346–354.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brush, S. (2000). The issue of in-situ conservation of crop genetic resources. In Brush, S. (ed.), Genes in the field: On-farm conservation of crop diversity. Lewis Publishers, London, pp. 3–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brush, S. (2004). Farmers bounty: Locating crop diversity in the contemporary world. Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bryceson, D. F., Kay, C., and Mooji, J. (2000). Disappearing pesantries?: Rural labour in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Intermediate Technology Publications, Exeter, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chernela, J. (1997). In Ribeiro, B. G. (ed.), Suma etnológica brasileira: Etnobiologia, 3rd ed. Editora UFPA, Belém, pp. 171–180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coomes, O. T., and Burt, G. J. (1997). Indigenous market-oriented agroforestry: Dissecting local diversity in western Amazonia. Agroforestry Systems 37: 27–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coomes, O. T., and Ban, N. (2004). Cultivated plant species diversity in home gardens of an Amazonian peasant village in Northeastern Peru. Economic Botany 58: 420–434.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coomes, O. T. (2010). Of stakes, stems and cuttings: The importance of local seed systems in traditional Amazonian societies. The Professional Geographer 62(3): 323–334.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dalle, S. P., Pulido, M. T., and de Blois, S. (2011). Balancing shifting cultivation and forest conservation: Lessons from a “sustainable landscape” in Southeastern Mexico. Ecological Applications 21: 1557–1572.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Denevan, W. M. (1984). Ecological heterogeneity and horizontal zonation of agriculture in the Amazon floodplain. In Schmink, M., and Wood, C. H. (eds.), Frontier expansion in Amazonia. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, pp. 311–336.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denevan, W. M., and Padoch, C. (1988). Swidden-fallow agroforestry in the Peruvian Amazon, Advances in Economic Botany. New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denevan, W. M., Treachy, J. M., Alcorn, J. B., Padoch, C., Denslow, J., and Paitan, S. F. (1994). Indigenous Agroforestry in the Peruvian Amazon: Bora Indian management of swidden fallows. Interciencia 9: 346–357.

    Google Scholar 

  • Godoy, R., Reyes-Garcia, V., Byron, E., Leonard, W. R., and Vadez, V. (2005). The effect of market economies on the well-being of indigenous peoples and their use of renewable natural Resources. Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 121–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J. (1997). Market incorporation, agricultural change, and sustainability among the Machiguenga Indians of the Peruvian Amazon. Human Ecology: 25: 319–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hiraoka, M. (1992). Caboclo and ribereño resource management in Amazonia: A review. In Redford, K., and Padoch, C. (eds.), Conservation of neotropical forests: Working from traditional resource use. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 158–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hiroaka, M. (1994). Mudanças nos padrões econômicos de uma poblação ribeirinha do estuario do Amazônas. In Furtado, L., Mello, A. F., and Leiatao, W. (eds.), Povos das Aguas: Realidades e Perspectivas na Amazonia. MPEF/Universidade Federal do Pará, Belem.

    Google Scholar 

  • Humphries, S. (1993). The intensification of traditional agriculture among Yucatec Maya Farmers: Facing the dilemma of livelihood sustainability. Human Ecology 21: 87–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kumar, B. M., and Nair, P. K. R. (2006). Tropical Homegardens: A time-tested example of sustainable Agroforestry. Springer Publishers, Dordrecht.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lamont, S. R., Eshbaugh, W. H., and Greenburg, A. M. (1999). Species composition, diversity and use of homegardens among three Amazonian villages. Economic Botany 53: 312–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lima, D. (1999). A construção histórica do term caboclo: Sobre estruturas e representações sociais no meio rural Amazônico. Novos cadernos NAEA 2: 5–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lima, D., Steward, A., and Richers, B. T. (2012). Trocas, experimentações e preferências: um estudo sobre a dinâmica da diversidade da mandioca no médio Solimões, Amazonas. Boletim Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi 7: 371–396.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, R. P., Penn Jr., J. W., and Leewen, J. (2006). Kumar, BM. In Kumar, B. M., and Nair, P. K. R. (eds.), Tropical Homegardens: A time-tested example of sustainable Agroforestry. Springer Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 43–60.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Moran, E. (1993). Through Amazonian eyes: The human ecology of Amazonian populations. Iowa University Press, Iowa City.

  • Murrieta, R., Brondizio, E., Siquiera, A. D., and Moran, E. (1992). Estratégias de subsistência da communidade de praia grande, Ilha de Marajó, Brasil. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi 5(2): 147–163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murrieta, R., Dufor, D., and Siqueira, A. D. (1999). Diet, subsistence and market in three Cabcolo populations on Marajó Island, Amazon, Brasil. Human Ecology 3: 455–475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murrieta, R., and WinklerPrins, A. (2006). ‘I Love Flowers’: home gardens, aesthetics and gender roles in a riverine caboclo community in the Lower Amazon, Brazil. In Adams, C., Murrieta, R. S. S., Neves, W. A., and Harris, M. (eds.), Amazon peasant societies in a changing environment: Political ecology, invisibility and modernity in the rainforest. Springer Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 241–258.

    Google Scholar 

  • Padoch, C., and de Jong, W. (1992). Diversity, variation, and change in ribereño agriculture. In Redford, K., and Padoch, C. (eds.), Conservation of Neotropical forests: Working from traditional resource use. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 158–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Padoch, C., and Pinedo-Vasquez, M. (1999). Farming above the flood in the várzea of Amapá: some preliminary results of the Projeto Várzea. In Padoch, C., Ayres, M., Pinedo-Vasquez, M., and Henderson, A. (eds.), Várzea: Diversity, development, and conservation in Amazonia’s whitewater floodplains. The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, pp. 345–354.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peroni, B., and Hanazak, N. (2002). Current and lost diversity of cultivated varieties, especially cassava, under swidden cultivation systems in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 92: 171–183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peters, C., Balick, M., Kahn, F., and Anderson, A. (1989). Oligarchic forests of economic plants in Amazonia: Utilization and conservation of an important tropical resource. Conservation Biology 3: 341–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peters, C. (1992). The ecology and economics of oligarchic Amazonian forests. Advances in Economic Botany 9: 15–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peralta, N., and Lima, D. (2011). Desenvolvimento rural, economia Doméstica e Sustentabilidade na RDS Mamirauá. Livro de Resumos: VIII Seminário Annual de Pesquisa do Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá, IDSM, Tefé, pp. 38–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perreault, T. (2005). Why chacras (swidden gardens) persist: Agrobiodiversity, food security, and cultural identity in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Human Organization 64: 327–339.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinedo Vasquez, M., Padoch, C., McGrath, D., and Ximenes-Ponte, T. (2002). Biodiversity as a product of smallholder response to change in Amazonia. In Brookfield, H., Padoch, C., Parsons, H., and Stocking, M. (eds.), Cultivating biodiversity: Understanding, analysing and using agricultural diversity. ITDG Publishing, London, pp. 167–178.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinedo, A., Vasquez, M., Padoch, C., and Padoch, C. (2009). Urban, rural and in-between: Multi-sited Households Mobility and Resource Management in the Amazon Flood Plain. In Alexiades, M. (ed.), Mobility and Migration in Indigenous Amazonia: Contemporary Ethnoecological Perspectives. Berghman, New York, pp. 86–96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinedo-Vazquez, M., Padoch, C., Sears, R., Brondizio, E., and Deadman, P. (2010). Urbano e rural: famílias multi-instaladas, mobilidade e manejo dos recursos de várzea na Amazônia. Novos Cadernos NAEA 11: 43–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prance, G. (1979). Notes on the vegetation of Amazonia III. The terminology of Amazonian forest types subject to inundation. Brittonia 31: 26–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rapoport Center (2008). Between the law and their land: Afro-Brazilian Quilombo Communities´ Struggle for Land Rights, A Report by the Rapoport Delegation on Afro-Brazilian Land Rights. The University of Texas at Austin School of Law. [online] URL: http://www.utexas.edu/law/centers/humanrights/projects_and_publications/brazil-report.pdf. Acessed April 20, 2013.

  • Refkasem, K., Lawrence, D., Padoch, C., Schmidt-Vogt, D., Ziegler, A. D., and Bech Brunn, T. (2009). Consequences of Swidden Transitions for Crop and Fallow Biodiversity in Southeast Asia. Human Ecology 37: 347–360.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rogiglio, V., and Sinclar, F. (2011). Maintaining the conservation value of shifting cultivation landscapes requires spatially explicit interventions. Environmental Management 48: 289–306.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sears, R. (2003). New Forestry on the Floodplain: The ecology management of Calycophyllum spruceanum (Rubiaceae) on the Amazon Landscape. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shand, H. (1997). Human nature: Agricultural biodiversity and farm-based food security. Rural Advancement Foundation International, Ottawa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, N. J. H. (1996). Home gardens as a springboard for agroforestry development in Amazonia. International Tree Crops Journal 9: 11–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steward, A. (2007). Nobody farms here anymore: Livelihood diversification in the Amazonian community of Carvão, a historical perspective. Agriculture and Human Values 24: 75–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steward, A. (2008). Changing fields, changing lives: Diversity in agriculture and economic strategies in two caboclo communities in the amazon estuary. Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thrupp, L. A. (2000). Linking agricultural biodiversity and food security: The valuable role of agrobiodiversity for sustainable development. International Affairs 2: 265–281.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vadez, V., Reyes-Garcia, C., Godoy, R. A., Apaza, V. L., Byron, E., Huanca, T., Leonard, W. R., Pérez, E., and Wilkie, D. (2004). Does integration to the market threaten agricultural diversity? panel and cross-sectional data from a horticultural-foraging society in the Bolivian Amazon. Human Ecology 32: 635–646.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vidal, L. (2008). Mazagão: A cidade que atravessou o Atlântico (1769–1783). Editora, Martins Fontes, São Paulo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Veteto, J. R., and Skarbo, K. (2009). Sowing the Seeds: Anthropological contributions to Agrobiodiversity studies. Culture & Agriculture 31: 73–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • WinklerPrins, A. (2002). House-lot gardens in Santerém, Pará, Brazil: Linking rural with urban. Urban Ecosystems 6: 43–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • WinklerPrins, A., and de Souza, P. S. (2005). Surviving the city: Urban home gardens and the economy of affection in the Brazilian Amazon. Journal of Latin America Geography 4: 107–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zarin, D., Pereira, V., Raffles, H., Rabelo, F. G., Pinedo-Vasquez, M., and Congalton, R. G. (2001). Landscape change in tidal floodplain near the mouth of the Amazon River. Forest Ecology and Management 154: 383–393.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Support for field research was granted through the EPA STAR Graduate Research Fellowship Program (2005 to 2007). A first version of this manuscript was written during my time as a NSF International Research Fellow (OISE 0905653; 2010 to 2012). I extend gratitude to the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Institute (IDSM) for further support during the elaboration of the final manuscript, and for funding fieldwork in the Middle Solimões region, which allowed study findings to be placed in a larger regional context. I recognize, in particular, Greicy Quelly de Araujo Rodrigues - IDSM for creating the study area map. I thank Christine Padoch, Oliver Coomes, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on earlier drafts, and am especially grateful to the residents of Mutuacá and all other research collaborators in Amapá, Brazil.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Group in Amazonian Agriculture, Biodiversity and Sustainable Management, Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development, Tefé, AM, Brazil

    Angela Steward

  2. Research Group in Social Organization and Participatory Resource Management, Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development, Tefé, AM, Brazil

    Angela Steward

Authors
  1. Angela Steward
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Angela Steward.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Steward, A. Reconfiguring Agrobiodiversity in the Amazon Estuary: Market Integration, the Açaí Trade and Smallholders’ Management Practices in Amapá, Brazil. Hum Ecol 41, 827–840 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9608-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9608-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation