Urban Lives

While the Andes is considered a rural area it is important to note that the informal economy and food security are enormous issues to urban residents. Cusco, while called a "small" city by residents (the city has about half a million citizens), still faces many issues that other larger urban areas do. However, to truly get a glimpse of how women are impacted due to migration and other issues affecting urban areas, I will be examining Lima in this entry. Yet, as I have not really been to Lima (aside from the exhausting wait for the flight to Cusco), I'm going to illustrate urban problems as I have seen them in Cusco.


As discussed previously here, at this blog, Structural Adjustment Programs have had harsh effects on many Peruvians. In the countryside cuts to small farmers and social services have left many people without land (as they can no longer afford it) and no money. This, in turn, has forced many rural people (especially from the Andes and especially women), to migrate to urban centers. Lima's population, for instance, has increased incredibly over the past several years due to constant rural-to-urban migration. In one of the municipalities of Lima, Villa Maria del Triunfo, out of a survey of urban agricultural producers only 18% were originally from Lima, the rest were migrants from rural areas. Out of the entirety of this urban agricultural program, 86% of producers or participants were women. Villa Maria del Triunfo is one of the incredibly poor outskirt neighborhoods of Lima, where infrastructure is failing or has yet to be installed, and most people are unemployed without access to basic services. However, as part of the government's new food security initiatives, Villa Maria del Triunfo participates in an urban agricultural program, where mostly women farm and garden on abandoned or government land. (Statistics and information come from the article Urban Agriculture, Poverty Alleviation, and Gender in Villa Maria del Triunfo, Peru” by Noemi Soto, Gunther Merzthal, Maribel Ordonez, and Milagros Touzet from the book Women Feeding Cities: Mainstreaming Gender in Urban Agriculture and Food Security). 


The statistics above show just how incredible the rates of migration are and how women migrants are more likely to be centered in these poor, urban regions than men. Men tend to find higher wage jobs in manufacturing or industry inside of the city, women, however, are often unable to acquire such jobs. This is due to decades of gendered norms, women's lack of access to education, and often women's inability to speak Spanish (if they are Quechua from the rural Andean highlands). Thus, it is quite clear that women are disproportionately affected by issues of poverty and food security--even though men are also exploited by these same systems. 


Sitting at the hostal that hosts our Spanish classes, at the top of Cusco, I am able to look down into the city, and often into the courtyards of the houses around me. In almost every courtyard there are small garden plots, chickens, and guinea pigs all being tended by women. Laundry is strung up overhead and grandmothers, mothers, and daughters are constantly at work--doing dishes, cooking, gardening, or feeding their small farm animals. 


In my host family's house, Doris rises early (4 or 5 am) to begin cooking (poor water quality, no hot water, and high altitude make it quite difficult to prepare food--even in a middle class neighborhood with a gas stove and oven). She visits the market several times a day, works in a chocolate shop, and cares for her aging mother, along with making extra income taking in students and tourists, whom she feeds breakfast, lunch and dinner. The lack of basic services here amplify the work she has to get done on a daily basis and leaves her little time for leisure or relaxation. In poor households, this work is tripled, as they do not even have gas stoves or running water. 


However, urban agriculture has shown to be an empowering experience for many women living in these conditions. They are able to have stable access to food for their families, thus giving them some form of value and independence. Additionally, they work with many other women and build support networks that aid them in many aspects of life and work. Child care can be shared, along with other daily responsibilities. When urban agriculture is really successful, these women may even have extra produce that they can sell in the market to earn some income. 


This film, "From the Earth to the Pot" showcases just how incredible urban agricultural initiatives have been, especially for women, in Lima, despite the disastrous conditions of urban life as a rural migrant.