Resumen

The practice of agriculture has traditionally been regarded as the pivotal turning point for the advancement towards complex social dynamics, which hace significantly contributed to the emergence of what is typically understood as civilization. Agriculture comprises important complications for an assortment of fields of knowledge, among which anthropology, sociology, economics, politics and law are counted, making its study ambitious whether it is tackled independently or as a whole. This research aims to study one small, yet very important part of that agricultural universe, the descendent (s) of Oryza Rufipogon, two words that at first sight possibly do not mean anything to most people, until their modern counterpart is mentioned, rica. Originally a tough and enduring Asian wild grass, that grew around swampy areas, rice has sustained a longstanding close quartered relationship with the human race to say the least. Archaeological evidence has proven human interaction with the cereal, as far back as 11.500 B.P. (D. Norville 1997) and even to 13.500 B.P. (Jiang 2006) during the late Pleistocene. Nowadays such consolidated relationship finds in the local and international rice trade, just another expression worth of studying, looking to underpin what is the impact of legal frameworks dominating said trade. To this end the Tolima region of Colombia as the main rice producing region in the country, becomes the perfect case study to assess the implications and consequences of changes in rice trade for producers and consumers in a non Asiatic developing economy.