In Tuñame, agricultural expansion is advancing into the Páramo de Pajarito-Arenales replacing native plant communities and ecosystem services with white potatoes and other cool-season vegetables. This dissertation uses a case study research methodology to systematically gather, analyze, and interpret Tuñame farmers and landowners' narratives of the advancing agricultural frontier with the goal of illuminating the underlying forces driving this expansion. Three prominent forces emerged: their cultural identities as parameros, their risk-averse and utility maximizing production decisions, and their use of medianería agreements to access capital, labor, and land. Tuñame farmers and landowners' oral histories describe in detail how in the 1960's, Isleños – Spanish immigrants from the Canary Islands – arrived and introduced modernized agricultural production systems. In the process of adopting these new technologies their cultural identity as a paramero shifted from someone who lives in the páramo to someone who grows white potatoes in the páramo. This new cultural identity requires them to grow white potatoes despite the negative ecological impacts. There is a high level of risk associated with growing white potatoes in the páramo owing to natural hazards and market fluctuation. Due to these uncertainties, Tuñame farmers and landowners' make risk-averse production decisions to maximize their farm household utility and avoid disaster. However, not all farm households in Tuñame can afford to make similar risk-averse decisions. The particular economic, social, political, cultural, and environmental contexts that farm households are embedded in influence the type of decisions they can afford to make. One of the most influential, underlying forces driving the expansion of agriculture into the Páramo de Pajarito-Arenales is the use of medianería agreements. These agreements represent a variety of land/labor arrangements based on both parties equally sharing the costs of production and the gains of harvest. Tuñame farmers and landowners use medianería agreements to determine access to and provide financial support for the use of páramo's natural resources. Páramo conservation policies need to acknowledge and take into account how Tuñame farmers identify as parameros, how and why they make risk-averse, utility-maximizing production decisions, and how they use medianería agreements to grow white potatoes in the páramo.