CAMPESINO BIOCULTURAL KNOWLEDGE EVOLUTION AT THE GUATUSO PLAIN, COSTA RICA

Abstract

The central Costa Rican government has promoted since the 1980’s the “agricultura de cambio” program in which its main effort has been for promoting the substitution of traditional agricultural crops (as black bean, maize and rice) by introducing new plants more profitables as commodities (such as pineapple, pipermint, orange).

Nevertheless, organized campesinos as the Asociación de Productores de Cacao Agroambientalistas (ASOPAC) are trying to maintain, promote and diversify their agricultural systems. This effort does not fit with the main purpose of governmental technicians who trying to engage them in specialized skill activities, related to the cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) plant management. With the use of participatory, ethnoecology and social approaches it was investigated the existence and evolution of campesino biocultural knowledge in the Guatuso zone. These results shown that local farm arrangement’s are focused on productive diversification, where the cacao cultivation is not the core anymore. Also, there were identified 63 plant species growing between the cacaotal. Likewise, it was shown the frosty pod (Moniliophthora roreri) disease influenced as a change’s generator towards the cacaotal management where the corpus, the praxis and cosmos were modified and allowed the introduction of resistant clones currently widespread on the zone. There were discussed the  changes generated in the construction of the body of knowledge as a consequence of the arrival of diseases which influenced the evolution of current biocultural campesino knowledge.