The tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis) and its social and economic importance in the families of the Northern Highland of Bolivia

Gladys J. Chipana Mendoza, Rubén Jacobo Trigo Riveros; Hugo Bosque Sánchez; Sven Erik Jacobsen; Geovana Mercado Ramos; Juan Pablo Rodríguez Calle; Iber Callisaya Estrada; Edwin Contreras Fernández; Justina Condori Mamani

Abstract

The tarwi in Bolivia is cultivated in four departments, with an average yield of 637 kg / ha, and a total annual production of 1208 t in an area of ​​1895 ha (ENA, 2008). Research carried out by Iturralde (2012), mention that in the community of Carabuco in the municipality of Puerto Mayor Carabuco there is a cultivated area of ​​17.8 ha of tarwi, representing 21% of the total area cultivated with an average yield of 1718 kg / which marketing market is located in the communities of Escoma and Korahuasi. It is for this reason that the objective of the present study is to evaluate the importance of the tarwi in the families of the municipality of Puerto Mayor Carabuco of the northern plateau of Bolivia, from the point of view of production, commercialization and consumption. To achieve this aim, participatory workshops, surveys of 105 farmers from 22 communities in the municipality and three-year and three-month follow-up were carried out on tarwi prices and quantities marketed. The treatment of the information was done with the statistical program Stata ver. 12.0, also deflated the prices in order to obtain real prices. Among the main results is that in the agricultural management 2010-2011 and 2011-2012, 25% of farmers planted tarwi with marketing prices differentiated between good and poor quality grain, where consumption in the region is very low, It can be said that the cultivation is important because producers can store the grain for long periods of time between one and two years offering it at local fairs mainly when they have some economic need or when the intermediaries allocate higher prices for the purchase of this product.