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Access Type
Open Access
Document Type
thesis
Degree Program
History
Degree Type
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Year Degree Awarded
2010
Month Degree Awarded
September
Keywords
Coca, Cocaine, Bolivia, Inflation, Drug Trafficking, Ayllu
Abstract
Bolivia in the 1980s was wracked by monetary inflation approaching levels of the German Weimar Republic. Immediately following this time of great financial crisis in Bolivia, the U.N. founded a project through the U.N.D.P. to encourage peasant farmers in Bolivia to switch from growing coca (the plant used manufacture cocaine) to growing other cash crops for market. This crop substitution and development program, called the Agroyungas Project, lasted from 1985 to 1991 and is the focus of this study. While many U.N. pundits and journalists considered the program’s initial small successes promising, it has been considered since its conclusion to be a failure. The program was poorly conceived, poorly funded and poorly executed from the start. So one question remains: why was the Agroyungas Project a failure? Additionally, was the project simply a way to steer Bolivians away from the illicit coca/cocaine economy? While on the surface this might appear to be the case, one must probe the complex situations in Bolivia deeply to uncover the true missteps behind this U.N. program. By looking at the evidence, it is apparent that crop substitution programs like the Agroyungas Project failed for a variety of reasons. Besides poor planning and execution of project plans, the project’s developers, planners and workers simply did not understand Bolivian indigenous culture and Bolivian history. However, the project was not doomed to fail. The lack of knowledge and understanding of indigenous Bolivian realities, Bolivian geography and Bolivian history directly led to the failures of the Agroyungas Project.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/1457559
First Advisor
Jose Angel Hernandez
Second Advisor
Joel W. Wolfe
Included in
Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, Cultural History Commons, Economic History Commons, Growth and Development Commons, Human Geography Commons, International Relations Commons, Latin American History Commons, Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons, Physical and Environmental Geography Commons, Political Economy Commons, Political History Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Urban Studies and Planning Commons