Capinota

Capinota is a small town in the Bolivian Department of Cochabamba and capital of the Capinota Province.

Location

Capinota is situated at an

The population is mainly of Quechua and mestizo of origin. The Capinota province has three sections: Capinota, Santivanes, and Sicaya and according to the 2012 census, the 29.659 population was distributed among Capinota, Santivanes, and Sicaya as 19.392, 6.527 and 3.740 inhabitants, respectively. The Capinota city is the biggest urban town and its population has risen from 3,955 (census 1992) to 4,801 (census 2001) and to 5.264 (census 2012). The second urban city is Irpa Irpa, having 3.868 inhabitants (census 2012).

Industry and Trade

Four kilometers from the city, in the community Irpa-Irpa is where Coboce Mill a cement production industry is located. This is the only major industrial activity in Capinota. Recently, Coboce concluded its expansion with a brand new mill. The Coboce company brought economic importance in trade and transportation to the province. The transportation of Coboce products is dominated by the local citizens.^{[citation needed]}

Agriculture

Because of the absence of frost, conditions for agriculture are favourable all year round. Crops which are mainly cultivated are

The average field size is only 0.35 ha, ranging from 600 to 6000 m². Land is owned privately as well as rented on a sharecropping basis. The land is prepared and ploughed manually and with oxen, tractors are rarely used.

Lameo

Farmers in Capinota, as in some other valleys of the Cochabamba Department, practise the technique of lameo (or: may'kas), an indigenous method of soil conservation, to enrich and conserve their soils. They make use of the minerals and organic sediments of Río Arque which are freed by rains in the upper part of the river basin. These materials are trapped by altering the course of the river in the Capinota basin to flood some of the fields along the river bed.

To alter the course of the river,