Influences of territorial conflicts on local crop diversity in a campesino community in the Colombian Caribbean

Land and agrarian conflicts have intensified Colombia’s internal war, particularly through land grabbing and dispossession, victimizing rural communities. National policies have favored industrial agriculture while marginalizing traditional smallholder practices. In the Colombian Caribbean region, this has hindered campesino livelihoods and biocultural memory. This research examines how agrarian conflicts have influenced agricultural practices and local crop diversity at the scale of a campesino community. It offers insights into the links between agrarian conflicts, transformations in local food systems, and the erosion of biocultural memory. Drawing on concepts from agrobiodiversity, biocultural memory, and political ecology, this study uses social mapping and historical analysis to assess how people experience spatiotemporal changes in land use and crop diversity. The findings show that people connect the decrease in crop diversity to wider changes in the food system, the effects of the violent agrarian conflict, and the expansion of industrial agriculture supported by the State.