Trama socio-productiva y comercial de la fibra de vicuña: desafí­os y oportunidades en la provincia de Jujuy

Abstract

Facing the complex panorama that shows the agricultural space in the NOA and specifically in arid areas such as the Puna in Jujuy, family agriculture deploys a multiplicity of practices and strategies for its persistence. These strategies include the sustainable management of the resource Vicuña, for use of the fiber by the native communities. The development of this activity is considered a potential for the sector in the Andean region, especially by being one of the most appreciated and quoted worldwide fibers. Its possible profitability has increased interest from national and foreign companies, meanwhile public organisms are trying to create conditions for the development of local productive chains with greatest benefit of the population of the territory. Communities have been developing experiences of conservation and management of vicuña, opportunity that arises the normative modification that enables the marketing of fiber of this species in wild life. This emerging experience implies the emergence of many questions about its feasibility, mainly on the possibilities of marketing and value added. Faced with this, the article proposes an analysis of the main dimensions that characterize the complex of natural fibers, specifically of vicuña: commercial and business logics, linked social actors, constraints and existing potentials, among others. The purpose is to provide public organisms and communities with systematized information at the time of making decisions. On the other hand, to establish a state of the art of the activity in the province helps to identify areas of vacancy for further, more focused research.

The proposed approach is qualitative, based on analysis of secondary data. The methodology is based on the perspective of the productive complexes, approach that allows to put the focus on the analysis not only on reproductive practices in the field of production, but also in institutional frames in the territory.