Land use intensification and disintensification in the Upper Canete valley, Peru

Farmers in the Upper Canete valley have both disintensified and intensified land use. The direction of land use change depends on the production zone in which it takes place. Although land in the distant rainfed agropastoral zone is disintensified through land abandonment and an increase of the fall ow period, land in the nearby irrigated agropastoral zone is intensified th rough more frequent cropping, and the use of high-yielding potato varieties , fertilizers, and pesticides. Simultaneous intensification and disintensif ication contradicts Boserup's theory of agricultural intensification, which predicts unilinear change for all land use systems within a village territ ory. Population has decreased in the Upper Canete valley, but this factor a lone cannot explain the dynamics of land use. Land use change is also drive n by differences and complementarity between production zones, their distan ce from the villages, and social, economic, and technological change.