Cultivated and Fallow Land in the Highlands of Cañar (Ecuadorean South Andes): Effects of Farmer Emigration on an Agrarian Landscape

On the threshold of the 21st century, Ecuador entered the darkest economic period in the history of its republic, resulting in a vast migratory movement to foreign countries. In the high Andes valley of Cañar, the speed and extent of the movement seemed, in many ways, to be the precursory signs of an exodus and of the environment’s return to nature. A decade later, the agrarian landscape reveals a strange paradox: some sections of the landscape, apparently abandoned to wilderness, suggest a progressive decline in agriculture, whereas others suggest the progression of a fodder front to higher altitudes. So what can we say about this landscape that shows a process of set-aside in some of its sections and cultivation in others? What meaning can we give to the term ‘fallow’ with the mountains displaying what appear to be antagonistic methods of agricultural development? These are the questions dealt with in this article, with ‘fallow’ as the main unifying thread. An analysis of the land...

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