Structural change of the agricultural and livestock vocation in the municipality of Purification, Tolima, Colombia

Abstract

In the municipality of Purification, Tolima, Colombia, the economies based on the monoculture of rice and the exploitation of hydrocarbons are the main lines of the productive activities. This extractivist model has generated an abrupt change in land use and tenure; In the ways of life of the communities and in the transformations of the social relations of this territory. In addition, the Colombian social and armed conflict was constituted in one of the scenarios of the systematic plundering of the land. Methodologically, Vision 2025 of the Department of Tolima is critically analyzed, contrasting with the best practices of literature and with observations in the area, to develop a critical stance from the perspective of communities and society. It was possible to visualize the progressive structural change of the agricultural and livestock vocation of a peasant family farming to a model of economy extractivist. It was concluded that land grabbing constitutes a real obstacle to the survival of peasant economies and their ways of life, their culture and their identity processes linked to the community use of land. Despite the existence of public policies focused on the development of rural communities and ecosystem care, territorial entities are far from responding to the serious situation of rural communities. The current configuration of land use and tenure in the municipality of purification, allows to understand how wicked public policies have been in the Colombian countryside.