Paraguay Land Use
A farmer in Paraguarí holding a sample of his watermelon
crop
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
Paraguay comprises a total of 40.6 million hectares of land. But
based on soil surveys, analysts have estimated that only one-fifth
of that area is appropriate for normal crop production. According
to the 1981 agricultural census, 7 percent of the land was
dedicated to crop production, 20 percent to forestry, 26 percent to
livestock, and 47 percent to other purposes. These figures
indicated the great agricultural potential that remained in
Paraguay in the late 1980s. One of the most important trends in
Paraguayan agriculture was the increase in the percentage of land
under cultivation, which had been only 2 percent in 1956. Livestock
activity fluctuated greatly during the 1970s and 1980s but
generally had increased, rising above the 22-percent land use
reported in 1956. The improved utilization of agricultural
resources resulted from increased colonization, favorable price
movements for cash crops, further mechanization, and
infrastructural improvements connecting produce with markets.
For agricultural purposes, the country can be divided into three
regions: the Chaco, the central region, and the eastern region. The
semiarid Chaco contained extensive grazing land that supported 40
percent of the country's livestock. Although the Chaco region
covered 60 percent of the country's land mass, it contained only 3
percent of the population and accounted for less than 2 percent of
crop production. With the exception of the Mennonite colonies in
the central Chaco, there was little crop activity
(see Minority Groups
, ch. 2). A more suitable location for crops was the central
region in the vicinity of Asunción, where traditional crop
production had dominated since peasants were pushed toward the
capital at the end of the War of the Triple Alliance. But
government policies since the 1960s had favored breaking up
minifundios in the central region and establishing larger,
more efficient farms in the fertile eastern border region, which is
endowed with rich, varied soils, well distributed annual rainfalls,
and millions of hectares of hardwood forests. Together these
regions cover some 16 million hectares, 40 percent of the country's
land and approximately 98 percent of the country's crop land.
Agricultural surveys in the east, the new focus of agricultural
activity, have determined that 30 percent of the region is suitable
for intensive agriculture, 40 percent for livestock, 20 percent for
moderate agriculture or livestock use, and 10 percent for forestry.
The country's land use changed rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s as
foreign investment, Paraguayan and Brazilian colonists, the
construction of Itaipú, favorable commodity prices, and new
infrastructure all contributed to the penetration of the dense
eastern region. Increased prices for soybeans and cotton beginning
in the early 1970s changed the Paraguayan landscape more
drastically than any other factor. By the late 1980s, cotton and
soybeans accounted for over 1.1 million hectares, or over 40
percent of all land in crops and contributed over 60 percent of
exports. Although government policies favored export crops, the
rapid expansion of cash crops was largely a direct response that
Paraguay's free-market economy made to the rise in the
international demand for these products.
Data as of December 1988
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