Comunidades campesinas, patrimonio agrario y mercados en los cultivos del ají y la quinoa

Abstract

Peasant communities in the central zone of Chile received two heritage crops from past generations: quinua (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) and chili pepper (Capsicum spp.). These crops are valued by consumers, governments, scientists and international organizations for their nutritional contributions, and the environmental services that they can provide in the context of climatic change and biodiversity loss. The hypothesis of this work is that peasant communities have preserved these corps by adapting their agricultural management, processing and marketing systems in response to changes in markets and public policies. The main goal was to identify the adaptation, characterizing and comparing the production, processing and marketing systems in quinua in the dryland area of the Region of O’Higgins to chili pepper in the zone of Villa Prat in the Region of Maule. The results show that the communities have carried out collective and family actions in order to adapt production and processing technologies. In addition, they have established collaborative alliances with public and private institutions to reach different markets. There are differences between the two territories. In the Region of O´Higgins, the government has supported the formation of peasant cooperatives able to process and commercialize quinua in national and international markets. In contrast, in the Region of Maule, support have been focused on improving infrastructure and equipment for individual entrepreneurs processing chili pepper on a family scale. Currently, the government promotes the integration of peasants to short marketing circuits. In this regard, it will be important to develop alliances among producers and urban consumer organizations aware of the nutritional value, peasant origin and heritage characteristics of the products. The peasant communities cultivating chili pepper and quinua have maintained an agricultural heritage of biocultural relevance for the country, which must be conserved.