268 J. Escobal et al. Agricultural Economics 23 2000 267–277
areas of Latin America. An increase in non-traditional exports has also been spurred on the supply side by
policies such as devaluation, tariff reduction, and in- ternational trade liberalization that put an end to the
anti-agricultural bias that the import substitution poli- cies had formed during the prior several decades. At
the same time, the withdrawal of government support to small farmers that was part of structural adjust-
ment made it harder for those farmers to participate in agro-export booms Carter and Mesbah, 1993; Schejt-
man, 1998.
The effects of agroindustrial growth are making themselves felt in the Latin American countryside.
The development literature has tended to focus on issues related to small farmers’ involvement in con-
tractual links with agroindustry. That literature found frequently that conditions are stringent and exclusion
of smallholders and inclusion of larger farmers is com- mon e.g., in Chile, Carter and Mesbah, 1993; and in
Mexico, Key and Runsten, 1999. Some studies have shown how agroindustry–farm links have affected the
technologies used by smallholders with illustrative cases in Schejtman, 1998.
Less common in the literature, simply because more recent, however, has been examination of
agroindustrialization’s effects on rural institutions
1
in the post-structural adjustment period. Yet one would expect endogenous institutional change to be
emerging with the new constraints and opportunities after deep changes in input and output markets due
to state withdrawal support to agriculture, and after substantial “de-protection” of the countryside has oc-
curred with improvements in rural infrastructure and with market liberalization. State withdrawal and rural
de-protection has created a different institutional and market context, one with new constraints but also new
opportunities for farmers.
This paper addresses the gap in the literature, using case studies of agroindustrialization in coastal Peru,
to analyze the endogenous change in rural private in-
1
We define institutions as in Hoff et al. 1993: “By an economic institution we mean a public system of rules that define the kinds
of exchanges that can occur among individuals and that structure their incentives in exchange. Economic institutions include markets
and property rights, systems of land and animal tenure, obligations of mutual insurance within lineage groups, and other systems
of exchange that are determined by implicit contracts or social norms.”
stitutions, and presents hypotheses as to their effects on the local economy, in particular on small farmers.
The latter is of interest to policymakers because of the hope that agroindustrialization, beside being of impor-
tance to competitivity of the region in global markets, might also serve to spur local rural employment and
development.
The study is of the valley of Chincha on the Pe- ruvian coast south of Lima. The area is ideal for our
inquiry because it was historically a cradle of the traditional agroindustrial boom in cotton. The cotton
boom has waned nationally but persisted in the most favorable production zones such as Chincha. The area
is all the more interesting because there has been a re- cent and large shift of the larger farmers out of cotton
and into asparagus, leaving cotton as a smallholder agroindustrial crop. Asparagus dominates the recent
horticultural export boom; in 1994, Peru exported 26 million dollars worth of fresh and canned asparagus,
and the value of exports increased 49 by 1996.
For both cotton and asparagus, we found rapid pri- vate institutional change and innovation. The most
novel is an innovation that is a manifestation in prac- tice of the tenancy contract institution involving ex-
change of management services for labor supervision, as described in theory by Eswaran and Kotwal 1985.
This innovation is currently stirring great interest in the development policy and project community in Peru.
This paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 describes the surveys, and data and zone. Section 3 analyzes
endogenous institutional innovation in the cotton agroindustrial economy of Chincha. Section 4 ana-
lyzes institutional change in the asparagus economy of Chincha. Section 5 hypothesizes effects of these
changes on the local economy in terms of employ- ment and business development. Section 6 concludes
the paper.
2. Surveys, and data and zones
Between March and May 1997, GRADE, a private research center in Peru, undertook a survey of 30
households in Chincha. In addition, group interviews based on a structured questionnaire were done to col-
lect supplemental contextual data from five groups of 15–19 farmers each. These primary data were sup-
plemented with information from the 1994 Peruvian
J. Escobal et al. Agricultural Economics 23 2000 267–277 269
Agricultural Census and the 1997 Living Standards Measurement Survey, and from key informant inter-
views in the zone. The data collected comprise qual- itative information on spatial preferences for input
acquisition, as well as contractual arrangements and income sources, and quantitative information on out-
puts and inputs related to the main crops examined. The limits to the survey did not permit collection of
consumption expenditure information.
The Chincha coastal zone, 250 km south of Lima by the coastal highway, is one of the most important agri-
cultural valleys of the Peruvian southern coast, and has been linked to the export market cotton for more than a
century. The zone has abundant aquifers for irrigation and plenty of flat cropland. The zone is dominated by
the intermediate city of Chincha, whose fast growth in the past two decades has been based on agroindustry,
fishing, and non-metallic mining. Chincha is near to other intermediate cities in the Sierra and serves as
their link to the coast.
More recently, an asparagus production boom has occurred in the valley, for several reasons: 1 Peru’s
southern coast provides an exceptionally good cli- mate for asparagus, offering producers two harvests
per year. The resulting yields 12 000 stalksha are far superior to those registered in Spain 7000 stalksha.
Spain is Peru’s main competitor and one of the fore- most producers and consumers of asparagus. 2 Chin-
cha is close to the Lima market. 3 In the past decade, there has been a virtual elimination of terrorism in the
region. 4 Labor costs in Chincha are low compared to those in Spain. 5 Irrigated farmland with regis-
tered titles is abundant. 6 The heritage of the long cotton boom is an abundance of experienced farmers,
agronomists, and input and transport firms geared to commercial agriculture.
A special characteristic of the development of as- paragus in this valley has been the contracts formed
between modern agroindustrial firms and asparagus farmers. The firms provide credit for variable inputs,
technical assistance, and even credit for land rental to induce farmers to switch from cotton to asparagus.
The valley has approximately 8000 farmers on 81 500 ha of which 31 000 ha is high quality land,
owned primarily by larger farmers. Land is concen- trated. Only 30 of the farmers have more than 5 ha
but control 88 of the land. That 30 is broken down into: 24 with 5–19.9 ha, 3.4 with 20–49.9,
and 2.1 with more than 50 ha. Seventy percent of farmers have less than 5 ha, and 24 have less than
0.5 ha. The average farm size is 6.4 ha. We divide the farmers into “small farmers”
parceleros, and the mediumlarge farmers, which for simplicity we call “large farmers”. The cutoff farm
size to distinguish between small and large farmers is 20 ha. Small farmers have on an average 6 ha, and the
large farmers, 68.5 ha.
Compared to the small farmers, large farmers are more commercialized and use more irrigation. Large
farmers irrigate 95 of their land, while the small farmers irrigate 70. Small farmers mainly irrigate
with river water using the gravity method, while the large farmers irrigate from wells and with the drip
method, and thus have greater water control, but also greater capital investment. Large farmers also use
more chemicals and machinery and rent more of their land. Thirty percent of the operated land of large
farmers is rented versus 10 of small farmers’ land. Most germane to this study, large farmers dedicate
more of their land to asparagus 65 for large farm- ers, 8 for small farmers, and less to cotton 18
for large versus 78 for small farmers. The rest of the land of the small farmers is mainly in maize for
home consumption.
At-home non-farm activity is undertaken by 22 of the farm households. The probability of participa-
tion increases with farm size, probably because larger farmers have more cash to meet capital entry require-
ments. These activities include mainly small-scale processing cheese and yogurt, machinery rental,
commerce, and cottage manufacturing. Away-from- home employment is undertaken by 30 of the farm
households in the Chincha zone. The probability of participation decreases with farm size. On average,
the composition of income from this activity is 44 farm wage labor, 20 commerce and transport, 33
construction, 6 other services, only 3 manufactur- ing, and 21 “other activities”. Small farmers work
off-farm in farm wage labor and non-farm activity with low entry requirements in terms of education
and financial capital. Large farmers tend to operate larger scale and capital-intensive non-farm enterprises
and engage in education-intensive non-farm salaried employment.
Small farmers depend for a part of their incomes on farm wage labor sales in commercial agriculture and
270 J. Escobal et al. Agricultural Economics 23 2000 267–277
agroindustry linked to it. About 18 of small farm- ers in the Carmen district, where we focused a rapid
reconnaissance specifically on the farm wage employ- ment issue live on their farms and work in Chincha
or in agroindustrial firms the importance of the lat- ter being rather small, about 70 live in the district
and work on their farms, while the rest work off-farm. About 76 work mainly on the farm, but 80 also sell
labor around the farm, in the harvest of asparagus and secondarily in asparagus packingprocessing plants,
and in the cotton harvest. About 40 work off-farm in the surrounding valleys Cañete and Ica, in other
agroindustrial crops potato, asparagus, grape, and cot- ton harvests, and in construction, fishing, commerce,
and transport. The latter two are linked to a large ex- tent to commercial agriculture and agroindustry.
3. Endogenous institutional innovation in cotton agroindustry
