ABSTRACT
The persistence of agricultural settlement in the face of recurrent adversity is commonplace in marginal lands where the attachment of people to place is strong. Few people have endured longer than the farmers of Fuerteventura, second largest and most starkly barren of the Canary Islands. By the mid-sixteenth century Fuerteventura, with nearby Lanzarote, had become known as the granary of the Canaries. In good years it exported surplus wheat and some goat cheese to the more populous Gran Canaria, Tenerife, La Palma, and even Madeira. An almost complete dependence on wheat as the money crop magnified the effect of Fuerteventura's aridity and isolation. Barley, although extensively planted on poorer lands, was normally kept at home for domestic consumption. With a real estate and construction boom fueled by outside capital, the peasants of this most traditional of the Canary Islands face a future of continuing and unpredictable change.
