Abstract

TURBAY, Sandra et al. Adaptation to climate variability among the coffee farmers of the watersheds of the rivers Porce and Chinchiná, Colombia. Invest. Geog [online]. 2014, n.85, pp.95-112. ISSN 2448-7279.  https://doi.org/10.14350/rig.42298.

This article seeks to explain the practices used by small farmers to cope with climate variability and extreme weather events in the basins of the Chinchiná and Porce rivers located on the central Andes in Colombia. The information wasglacie collected through interviews, observations on farms and workshops with farmers. Additionally historical averages on temperature, precipitation and sunshine were compared with those values recorded in 2010 during the transition between El Niño an La Niña events. During the first quarter of 2010 the average temperature in Chinchiná increased by 1.4 Cº and the solar brightness by 14%, while the precipitation experienced a 46% reduction. In contrast, during the second half of the year there was a decrease of 0.8 Cº in temperature, a 31% reduction in solar brightness and an increase in precipitation of 62%. The coffee production in the years 2011 and 2012 was the lowest in the country in the last 35 years despite the cultivated area increased. These changes affected the coffee plantations and substantially decreased grain coffe production. Coffee production in the years 2011 and 2012 was the lowest in the country in the last 35 years despite the cultivated area increase. These fall in coffee production was also a result of the renewal with rust resistant varieties, which at that time had not yet begun to produce. Most of the farmers have 5 hectares or less and are union members in the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia (FNCC), which provides multiple services to them including an extension service with spread of the findings of field investigations carried out by the National Coffee Research Center (CENICAFE). These study results indicates some strategies used by peasants to minimize the effects of climate variability: the shade management in coffee plantations, especially with banana (Musa sp.) and guamo (Inga sp); their renewal with the rust resistant variety named Castillo; the association of crops, particularly coffee, maize and bean; the use of mulches, organic fertilizers and mycorrhizae; a proper fertilization; the cultivation of two-axis coffee plants; the staggered planting of coffee in different plots and the reforestation of hillsides and births water, especially with (Guadua angustifolia), are strategies used to minimize the effects of climate variability. However these strategies are more frequent in Porce than in Chinchiná where sun coffee plantations and intensive agriculture are predominants. The article indicates that adaptation to climate variability is not achieved only by technological measures if do not decrease the sources of vulnerability of the rural population. The farmers are more exposed to the effects of weather because of their poverty, as a result of building on steep slopes, by cause of the volatility in the international price of coffee, by virtue of the exchange rate, due to the lack of a culture of crop insurance and for the lack of generational renewal in agriculture. Additionally peasants in Chinchiná faced threats of earthquakes, eruption of Nevado del Ruiz volcano, susceptibility of volcanic soils to mass removals and glacier melting, an increasingly process accelerated by climate change. This paper also highlights the social, economic and political adaptation strategies to climate variability. We found that the resilience of rural households increases when resorting to agrotourism, integration of family labor, associations, political mobilization for claiming benefits, casual wage labor on other farms, integration to fair markets coffee and coffee certifications that increase the price of This work also highlights the social, economic and political adaptation strategies to climate variability. We found that the resilience of rural households increases when resorting to the agrotourism, integration of family labor, the union associations, political mobilization for claiming benefits, the casual wage labor on other farms, the integration to fair markets of coffee and coffee certifications that increase the price of grain of coffee grain. Not all spontaneous adaptation measures are positive, it is necessary to evaluate the experience of many coffee farms of medium length that were converted to livestock, rural tourism and citrus growing. Since climate change and climate variability has increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, this work also helps to identify vulnerabilities and adaptation of rural populations to climate change and extreme events.

Keywords : Adaptation to climate change; vulnerability to climate change; coffee plant agriculture; climate variability; climate extreme events; coffee growers in Colombia; coffee; governance.

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