ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how farmers in the Colca Valley of Peru manage and rebuild agricultural terraces, and aims to understand the present agronomic and social contexts of terracing and how the practice may contribute to future Andean farming strategies. Agricultural terraces are among the most distinctive and widespread features of the Andean highland landscape. In the pre-Hispanic era, terraces built by indigenous societies supported large populations, primarily in the arid valleys of the western Andes, but also on the moist eastern Andean flanks. The extent to which terrace construction and reconstruction is consonant with household and community economic goals, local irrigation capacities, and land tenure patterns may in large measure determine the ultimate success of new terrace agriculture. The paramount economic contribution of terraces to the people of Coporaque is agricultural security. There are socioeconomic contexts in contemporary rural societies that, while different from the past, may be equally supportive of terrace agriculture.
