Resumen de The role of medicinal plants in rural paraguayan livelihoods reason for extensive medicinal plant use in Paraguay
Changing global markets imposed new conditions on Paraguayan “campesinos” or small farmers when the price of cotton crashed in the late 1980s. Many had been effectively inserted into the market economy due to available cash flow from advanced sales of cotton during the 1970s and 80s. One of the strategies adopted to cope with these changes was a return to more traditional farming systems concentrated on subsistence crops. Diversification however, has been slow to come about, leaving many with no reliable source of alternate income. A complete return to a pure subsistence economy would be unreal, as the cotton boom created a need for consumer items and a reversal of this trend is highly unlikely. Finding a substitute for cotton, as a cash provider would ameliorate cash constraints of resource limited farmers. Nevertheless, it is unreasonable to think that any one crop will be able to provide the type of income and cash flow that cotton did. The addition of several livelihood activities, tailored to individual regions and household compositions then becomes a more real and attainable solution to the problem.
Farmers to be targeted in projects to extend the technology of cultivating medicinal plant as an alternative cash crop are identified. The history of medicinal plant use is traced from pre-Colombian times to the present in an effort to place the demand for these botanical products in context. Medicinal plants are important for healthcare, nutrition, biodiversity conservation at the landscape level, ex-situ species conservation, human diversity, economic and community development, and cultural identity among other benefits.
An Ethnographic Linear Program was used to analyze the economics of the livelihood systems at the two study sites. In this program, resources and constraints were set in a matrix. Labor was dissagregated by gender and season. The testing of different alternatives was possible due to the fact that the model closely simulated the functioning of a small family farm. Results included the identification of household types at certain geographical locations to be targeted in projects that involve the cultivation of medicinal plants. The price at which medicinal plants replace cotton in the livelihood system and the effect of remittances from family members was also tested. Finally, discretionary cash at year’s end was related to differing farm sizes.
Several recommendations emerged from the findings and are expected to be useful to policymakers as a reference. The urgent need for projects regarding the maintenance of knowledge and reproductive material of the rich Paraguayan pharmacopoeia
