Climate Change and Crop Diversity: Manioc Varietal Management in the Rural Amazon

Between 2009 and 2010, record flooding accompanied by intense drought left devastating impacts on many smallholder farming communities in the Central Amazon, severely compromising production of even the most resistant crops, including the regional staple manioc.  Drawing on botanical, ethnographic, and social network data collected from this period, I examine the effects of these events on the production and management of manioc and its varieties in caboclo communities along the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon.  Through this examination, I consider influences that may contribute to dwindling crop diversity and added farmer vulnerability, including issues in crop selection, market demand, and varietal distribution along social networks of exchange.  I also discuss how farmers who occupy critical positions in social networks can serve important roles in broadening varietal distribution and thus improving community resilience in the face of increasingly uncertain environmental and climatic conditions.  To conclude, I outline some of the ways in which ethnobiological research on crop diversity management may serve both farmers and policy makers in this time of anthropogenic climate change.