Technological and economic appropri

Technological and economic appropriateness does not necessarily mean that contemporary farmers of the region will or should adopt raised field agriculture. Surprisingly, some reasons for adoption of raised fields by farmers had little to do with appropriate technology and high productivity.During the 1980s, Huatta, Coata, and surrounding communities petitioned the Peruvian government for lands held by the government cooperative SAIS Buenavista. Pre-Columbian raised fields cover these lands, which originally belonged to these communities. When the government resisted the petitions,
farmers occupied the lands, beginning a tense standoff between communities and police. The government finally ceded the lands to the communities in the late 1980s. Almost immediately, blocks of raised fields were built to mark
the new boundaries between neighboring communities. Rehabilitated raised fields became a powerful political marker of a community’s right to occupy and farm traditional lands (Erickson and Brinkmeier 1991).