Inca Economy
The Economy of the Incas
Economic organization
The economic basis of the rule was agriculture. The land was divided into three categories, whose products correspond respectively to the Inca, the priests and people, but its entirely up to the state property, ie the Inca.
The farmers engaged in community work, both at the time of sowing and in the harvest, the land that every year they were assigned by a local official, according to the needs and size of each community.
Also part of the cultivated land of the Inca priests and without receiving anything in return. Agricultural techniques were limited to the hoe and taclla (hoe long provided which supported runner's foot over the instrument to sink into the ground), use of fertilizers (animal manure in the upland and decomposed fish, or guano, in coastal areas) and also constructed canals, aqueducts and ponds and practiced cultivation terraces to take advantage of the high lands of the Andean slopes.
The most important crop in Peru was the potato, which allowed range of species cultivated from the coast to the slopes of the plateau land to more than 3500 meters high. Other important crops are maize, oca, quinoa, cocoa, custard apple, papaya, tomatoes, beans, cabbage, squash, chile, etc. Also grew cotton.
Incaica livestock was a key element in the economy of the empire, and, like land, cattle were owned by the state and Inca were divided into three categories. Each community had a number of animals belonging to each category, which should take care of and whose products must meet and submit to the state as a whole. The only domestic animals were a group of camelids, the llama, guanaco, alpaca and vicuña. The flame was utilized for their wool and as beasts of burden, and the vicuna and alpaca provided the finest wool that went to the beautiful fabrics of the Inca and his entourage.
