Thirty-Five Years of Changes in Smallholder Maize-Based Farming Systems in Mexico: a Typology Approach

Thirty-five years of changes in smallholder maize-based farming systems in Mexico: A typology approach

Beatriz Alvarado Perry

MSc thesis

Farming System Ecology Group

Thirty-five years of changes in smallholder maize-based farming systems in Mexico: A typology approach

Student Name: Beatriz Alvarado Perry Registration No.: 880919013130 Study program: MSc Plant Sciences Course name: MSc Thesis Farming Systems Ecology Course code: FSE-80436

Supervisors:

dr.ir. WAH (Walter) Rossing

MSc. Ivan Pontin Novotny

Examiner:

dr.ir. FJJA (Felix) Bianchi

October 2016 Farming Systems Ecology Group Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Cover photo: Santa Catarina Tayata. Credits: Ivan Pontin Novotny

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Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Walter Rossing for accepting me as his student, for his expertise, guidance and persistent help throughout my project.

I am thankful to Dr. Felix Bianchi for accepting to be my co-examiner and for his interest in this project.

I also want to sincerely thank MSc Ivan Novotny, for his valuable opinion and encouragement. Gracias carnal!

Special thanks also go out to my friends in Mexico, especially to Cristian Reyna and Erick Rebollo, who made the work field so enjoyable. I would also like to thank all the farmers in Santa Catarina Tayata for sharing their valuable time with me, this research would not have been possible without their insight. A special thanks to Jesus Galicia for all the support during the data collection and his wife for preparing those delicious lunches.

Thank you to my second family, Silvia de la Rosa and Rolando Moreno for sharing all these adventures with, for helping me to survive the stress and not make me give up. Also, thank you to all that amazing people and friends who made my life more beautiful during these two years in Wageningen.

Especially, I would like to thank my dear boyfriend, Tony. For all the strong support he gave me during this journey, for the patience and care, for always giving me words of encouragement and for being there for me all the way, Ik hou van je.

Lastly, I want to thank my beloved family. Estoy en gran deuda con ustedes, por darme lo mejor de cada uno de ustedes. Con mi padre Manuel por darme las alas para volar tan alto como mis sueños me lo permitieran. Con mi madre Irma por seguirme dando valiosas lecciones hasta ahora y por siempre elevar una oración para mí. Con mi hermana Adriana por enseñarme que los limites no existen, por tu paciencia y consejos durante estos años. Pero especialmente por enseñarme que la distancia nunca es una barrera para estar unidos. Con mi hermana Edith por siempre estar disponible para sanarme, abrazarme y regalarme tantos momentos de alegría. Gracias Familia por apoyarme a lograr cada una de mis metas y siempre recibirme en casa con amor y cariño.

ABSTRACT

Ensure sustainability and meet international development goals in regions where smallholder farmers depend on resource bases prone to degradation is one of the challenges policy issues faced today. This is particularly true for Mexican smallholder farmers, who produce on small plots and often do this in a marginal environment. Despite the importance of agriculture for livelihood security of smallholder farmers in rural areas agricultural production has decreased in the entire country. The existence of a link between the decrease of agricultural production and policy changes occurred in Mexico in the late 1980s is topic of debate. Understanding past trajectories of change in farming systems, would shed a light on how did these changes in Mexican agricultural policies affected smallholder farmers, and bring relevant knowledge for further design of innovative and sustainable farming systems to improve farmers´ livelihoods. A participatory typology was developed to characterise the farming systems present thirty-five years ago. The resulting typology was compared with a typology of the present farming systems to trace the changes that occurred in farming systems over time. Results gained in a case study area in a rural community in the southern state of Oaxaca showed six contrasted farm-developed types that could be related with the agricultural policy changes on the 1980s. In regard the changes occurred in farming system, they were classified in four categories (1) Changes on land use and production orientation, in terms of land use land use change communal land for livestock grazing were reduced. In terms of production orientation, milpa system used to be the predominant cropping system for food self-sufficiency and mono-cropping is the salient system; (2) Changes in the type of fertilizers used and equipment employed for farm activities, (3) Wage farm labour has increase and barter labour has decreased (4) Diversification in the source of income. Farmers combine and explore diverse strategies to adapt to changes, therefore, the construction of a participatory typology for the present time is recommended. In order to test the accuracy of the comparative approach, and based on the results obtained improves can be done in the methodology described on this research.

Key words: Sustainability, trajectories of agricultural change, typology, rural farmers, Mexico.

Table of Contents CHAPTER 1. Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Changes in agricultural policies ...... 2 1.2 Research framework ...... 4 1.3 Objective ...... 5 1.4 Research question ...... 5 1.5 The case study area ...... 5 CHAPTER 2. Materials and methods ...... 8 2.1 Data Collection ...... 8 2.1.1 Semi-structured questionnaire ...... 8 2.1.2 Timeline construction...... 8 2.2 Current available data ...... 8 2.2.1 Statistical typology ...... 8 2.4 Data analysis ...... 9 2.4.1 Procedure to construct the characterisation of the farm systems present thirty-five years ago ...... 9 2.4.2 Comparison of the typologies ...... 9 CHAPTER 3. Results ...... 10 3.1 Semi-structured questionnaire ...... 10 3.2 timeline construction ...... 13 3.3 Participatory typology ...... 14 3.4 Comparison of the statistical and participatory typologies...... 16 3.4 Farming systems trajectories ...... 18 CHAPTER 4. DISCUSSION AND RECOMENDATIONS ...... 22 Conclusions ...... 25 REFERENCES ...... 26 APPENDICES ...... 29 Appendix 1 ...... 29 Appendix 2 ...... 30

List of figures Figure 1. Representation on how changes in agricultural policies impacted smallholder farmers. 4

Figure 2.Geographical location of Santa Catarina Tayata municipality ...... 6 Figure 3. General timeline description of the changes experienced in Santa Catarina Tayata ...... 13 Figure 4. A) Graphical representation of the transition of the farms in the community over the last thirty-five years. B) Vertical spider web representation of the traceability of the farming systems trajectories...... 18

Figure 5. Schematic representation of the how does the changes in policy influence the changes occurred in farming systems in Santa Catarina Tayata...... 21

Figure 6. Circular representation of the transition of farm among types. Source: Chopin et al. (2015)...... 24

List of tables Table 1. Demographic description of Santa Catarina Tayata ...... 7 Table 2. Present main land used in Santa Catarina Tayata...... 7 Table 3.Maize cropping activities in chronological order...... 7 Table 4. Characteristics of the farms present thirty-five years ago in the community...... 11

Table 5. Characterisation of farming system present thirty-five years ago using participatory typology ...... 15

Table 6. Comparison of the main characteristics of the farming systems using (P) participatory typology and (S) statistical typology...... 17 Table 7. Description of the characteristics of the four farm types determined statistic methods …19

Table 8. description of the characteristics of the sic farm types determined in the participatory typology ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………20

CHAPTER 1. Introduction

Agriculture in the 21st century faces multiple challenges: the need to produce more food to feed the growing population, adoption of efficient and sustainable production methods and adaptation to climate change (FAO, 2011). Poole et al. ( 2007) point out that to ensure sustainability and meet international development goals in regions where smallholder farmers depend on resource bases prone to degradation is one of the challenging policy issues faced today. This is particularly true for Mexican smallholder farmers, who produce on small plots and often do this in a marginal environment (UN, 2013).

In Mexico, agriculture is the predominant activity in rural areas. In the central north and southern states, farming systems are focused on maize production since this has a key role in cultural and nutritional aspects (INEGI, 2010b). Maize is typically grown in association with other crops, this is an ancient mode of production named milpa system. This system refers to a complex combination of agronomic practices, crop associations and rotation sequences (Birol et al., 2008). The fundamental associated crops are bean and squash. The extension of land on which the milpa is cultivated depends on the soil and agronomic features of the farm and the consumption needs of the family (Birol et al., 2008).

Agriculture remains the livelihood for an estimated eight million rural farmers who depend on their resource availability to produce for local markets or focus on self-sufficiency (UN, 2013). These days the milpa system is practiced by approximately two million farm households across Mexico, most of these households use the system to secure their food supply and quality of their diet (Bellon and Berthaud, 2004).

Despite the importance of agriculture for livelihood security of smallholder farmers in rural areas, agricultural activities compete for labour with off-farm employment, interstate migration and out- migration (Taylor and Martin, 2001; Van Dusen and Smale, 2006). Agricultural production has decreased by twenty-eight percent between 1993 and 2010 in the entire country, according to data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD,2010).

The existence of a link between the decrease of agricultural production and policy changes, which took place in the 1980s, is claimed by several authors. (Tetreault, 2010; Antonio Yunez-Naude, 2014; Antonio Yunez-Naude and Barceinas Paredes, 2000; Antonio Yunez-Naude and Barceinas Paredes, 2004). The changes in agricultural policy ranged from management of traditional Mexican systems of land tenure (ejido system), to the elimination of crop price support for farmers producing staple crops (Yunez-Naude and Barceinas Paredes, 2000). After the implementation of these changes, in the 1990s the Mexican government created specific institutions to reduce rural poverty and provide income support to smallholder farmers in rural areas.

The Mexican government (regional level) is taking action to reduce the abandonment of agricultural lands and increase the production of smallholder farmers in rural areas. At the same time actions must be implemented at the farm level, where the consequence from changes in agricultural policies are felt. There is a duality of influences between one another; both have to be considered for an analysis on the decrease of agricultural production in Mexico. The recommendations and guidelines set at the regional level shapes the way actions take place at the farm level. But, how did these changes in Mexican agricultural policies affected smallholder farmers and in consequence, the farming system in the past thirty-five years?

In this first part, a description of general information on economic and agricultural policy changes, which occurred in Mexico in the late 1980s will be presented. In the next section, the theme of this thesis will be presented, starting with a schematic representation of the research framework. This will be used as basis to set both research objective and questions. In the last part of chapter one, there will be an introduction to the case study area. In chapter two the materials and methods, which were used during the research, will be presented. These are divided into three subsections, namely: (1) the methods used in the field work for data collection (2) the description of the available data used in this research and (3) the description of the methodology from Kuivaven et al. (2016) used for the analysis of the information. In chapter three, the obtained results from the analysis are shown. In the final part of the thesis, the results are discussed and recommendations for further research work are made.

1.1 Changes in agricultural policies

Until the early 1980s, the government played a key role in the production and marketing decisions of the Mexican agricultural sector, and particularly on the ejido system. The ejido system was established after the Mexican revolution in 1910. The system granted land and water to a community of farmers known as ejidatarios. Ejidatarios had usufruct rights over the land they cultivated and the government provided technical assistance to the farmers, including marketing channels through state-owned companies. However, the ejidatarios had restrictions on the sale and rent of the land they cultivated. A major rule stipulated that if there was a two years’ absence from the ejido, the ejidatario would lose the land rights(Alegría and López, 2010).

The government involvement in the Mexican agricultural system was represented through three main state-owned companies (Flores, 1999). (1) The National Company for Popular Subsistence (CONASUPO, from its Spanish acronym) provides crop price support to producers of key staples such as maize and wheat. In addition, consumption subsidies of tortillas (flatbread made from corn flour) and milk was provided (2) The National Company of Fertilizers (FERTIMEX, from its Spanish

2 acronym) purchased fertilizers at subsidised prices for Mexican farmers (3) The National Bank of Rural Credit (BANRURAL, for its Spanish acronym) was focused on supporting smallholder farmers by providing special credit and insurance programs.

The close involvement of the Mexican government in the agricultural system went through several changes in the late 1980s. The changes were the result from the integration of the agricultural sector in the economic policy reforms. The detachment process of the government from the agricultural sector happened gradually. As a result, these modifications had effect on the ejido system. First, ejidatarios were able to sell and rent their lands. Second, the government intervention about which crops farmers needed to grow and the type of land management techniques the farmers need to use came to an end. (Antonio Yunez-Naude, 2014; Antonio Yunez- Naude and Barceinas Paredes, 2004).

Less government involvement in the agricultural sector was accompanied with the abolishment of crop price support, which in later years became the CONASUPO dissolve. Other consequences of this change were the privatization of FERTIMEX, which led to the cancellation on the price subsidies for fertilizers and the conclusion of the credits programs provided by BANRURAL(Antonio Yunez-Naude and Barceinas Paredes, 2004). The final step of the detachment process was the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) objectives in the country. The NAFTA agreement came to effect in 1994, making the world’s largest free trading zone of Canada, USA, and Mexico (NAFTA, 2012).

The expectation of the Mexican government after the NAFTA agreement was a price convergence in agricultural products between the three countries. Through the liberalisation of import/export restrictions, the export of agricultural products for which Mexico was competitive (fruit and vegetables) would increase, leading to economic growth. And the reforms in the agricultural sector, and in consequence the ejido system, would enhance the agricultural productivity through an improvement of resource allocation( Yunez-Naude, 2014).

In response to the reforms in the agricultural sector and the liberalization reforms, the state developed new agricultural programs that were designed to ease the adjustment process for small scale farmers in the rural areas (Hellin et al., 2012). The aim of these programs was to enhance rural productivity and development while providing an income support during the adjustment process. However, smallholder farmers were challenged to adapt and secure their livelihoods while the resource investment for agriculture was benefiting large-scale farmers in the northern states.(UN, 2013)

1.2 Research framework

After literature review related with the Mexican agricultural sector and agricultural policy changes through history, the following research framework was developed (Figure 1)

Figure 1. Representation on how changes in agricultural policies impacted smallholder farmers, the shaded parts represent the farm household elements in the scheme .

From literature, changes in agricultural policy are pointed out as the potential main drivers of change, both directly and indirectly, over the livelihood strategies developed by Mexican farmers to ensure their family sustenance (Tetreault, 2010; Yunez-Naude and Barceinas Paredes, 2000; Yunez-Naude and Barceinas Paredes, 2004). However, the changes ocurred at local level has not been assess with the same extent as the changes ocurred at the national level.Following this line of thoughts, there still the need to evaluate if the changes at the local level may also represent a significant driving force for the changes in livelihood strategies.

The livelihood security is presented as the main output of the farm system for the household. Which has a feedback over the livelihood strategies indicating that the possible changes in farming systems and livelihood adaptation strategies may be different among farmers in the same community.

The understanding of past trajectories of farming systems can contribute to explain the interaction between smallholder farming systems and the landscape features and services, in order to anticipate future trade-offs in ecological intensification (CIMMYT and CGIAR, 2013).

By creating understanding on past changes of smallholder farming systems in Mexican rural areas, enhancement on their livelihood strategies could be developed by implementing ecological intensification. Which is related to the current ongoing PhD project of Ivan Novotny in farming systems in Mesoamerica.

Therefore, the analysis and understanding of past trajectories of farming systems will contribute to identify the constraints that farmers have faced. Following this line of thought, the research objective of the thesis will be described.

1.3 Objective

To understand how changes in Mexican agricultural policies affected smallholder farmers in rural areas, the present research project focused its analysis on trajectories of farming systems through the characterisation of farming systems over the past thirty-five years.

1.4 Research question

1. Are the changes in agricultural policy the only drivers accounted for the changes that occurred in the farming systems over the years? 2. What were the local changes in terms of land management, crop diversity and productivity? 3. Are there other influential factors driving changes on Mexican farming systems?

1.5 The case study area

The study area of the research was Santa Catarina Tayata, in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Oaxaca is the second Mexican state with the highest number of ejidos; According to the National Agrarian Registry (RAN, for its Spanish acronym) there were 732 ejidos registered in 2012, which covers 72% of the total surface area of the state (RAN, 2012). Besides this, and according to the National Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL), the municipality of Santa Catarina Tayata is a community with one of the highest rates of poverty in the state(CONEVAL, 2010).

Figure 2.Geographical location of Santa Catarina Tayata municipality.

The municipality Santa Catarina Tayata is part of the Tlaxiaco district in the south of the state of Oaxaca (Figure 2). The municipality is located at an altitude between 2000 and 2600 meters above sea level. The total territory of the municipality is 37 Km2 and accounts for 0.04% of the total Oaxaca territory, present land use of the municipality are shown in Table 1. The climate is sub- humid with a rainy season between April and October. The average temperature varies between 14 and 18 °C and the annual precipitation is around 800-1000 mm. Major demographic characteristics are present in Table 2.

The state of Oaxaca is the third poorest state in Mexico. It is also highly dependent on public resource investment for economic growth. Rain fed agriculture accounts for 93% of the total agricultural area in the state. The average size of agricultural plots is no bigger than 3 hectares and the most important crops in the state are maize and coffee, with maize representing 90% of the total cultivated area(World Bank, 2003). The land tenure system in the state is predominately ejido (RAN,2012).

The local economy is based on agriculture and livestock production, but in the last decades this sector has shown a slow decrease as source of income. As a result, the economy has diversified and also includes remittances, handcraft sales and off-farm work as main source of income (INEGI, 2010a). Farming activities are decreasing and a great part of the population out-migrate to larger cities in the country or the USA to seek job opportunities (Van Dusen and Smale, 2006).

Farmers in the region are characterised as smallholder farmers, who mostly practice maize-based farming systems. The maize cropping activities follow a chronological order (Table 3) and are generally carried out by animal traction and hand labour. The main production constraints which the farmers face are poor mechanization, restricted access to credits or technical assistance, little or null access to irrigation systems and low access to external inputs (Velásquez, 2002). Other constraints farmers face are drought, erosion and soils with poor water retention, together with low nutrient content(Cruz and Bravo, 1988; SAGARPA, 1999)

Table 1. Demographic description of Santa Catarina Tayata. (INEGI, 2010b)

Demographic information Population 679 inhabitants Population density 17.6 hab./km2

Table 2 . Present main land used in Santa Catarina Tayata.(INEGI, 2005)

Land use Area (%) Agriculture 51 Forest 46 Urban 1.9

Table 3 .Maize cropping activities in chronological order. Modified from Velásquez ( 2002)

Activity Means Ploughing Animal traction Cross ploughing to eliminate weeds Animal traction Furrowing, sowing and foot tamping Hand labour Weeding, 25-30 days after sowing Hand labour Hilling up and second weeding, 50 days after Animal traction and manual labour sowing Harvesting Hand labour

CHAPTER 2. Materials and methods

Qualitative data regarding farmers’ perception of the change processes that occurred in the farming systems in the municipality over the last thirty-five years were collected through participatory methods. Twenty-eight farmers were selected from an existent data base (Novotny, 2015; unpublished data), using the farmers’ age as the selection criteria 2.1 Data Collection

2.1.1 Semi-structured questionnaire

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two elderly farmers as a pilot before being adjusted and executed with each of the twenty-eight selected farmer. The semi-structured questionnaire was used to acquire information on the farming systems present thirty-five years ago. The questionnaire was divided in six sections: Land management, land use, livestock production, off-farm works, support income from government programs and remittances. Farmers were asked to recall information about crucial events that influenced their decision on changing their farming system.

2.1.2 Timeline construction

A time line construction was used as a complementary method to help farmers to recall information in a structured way during the semi-structured questionnaire. The timeline was drawn on a piece of paper, allowing the farmers to describe the experienced changes in the farming systems in a schematic representation (Appendix 1). The construction of the timeline was divided in the same six sections as the semi-structured questionnaire. The timelines were used to acquire information of transitional changes that occurred in the farming systems over the years and to determine a starting point for the trajectory analysis.

2.2 Current available data

2.2.1 Statistical typology

A typology for the present farming systems in the community was available (Novotny, 2015; unpublished data). This was constructed by characterising fifty-one farmers of the community using two multivariate statistical techniques; principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). The selected farmers for this typology construction were classified in four resulting groups. Additional details on the variables were used to classify the farmers and the resulting typology are provided in Appendix 2.

2.4 Data analysis

2.4.1 Procedure to construct the characterisation of the farm systems present thirty-five years ago

A modified version of the methodology presented in Kuivanen et al. ( 2016)was employed to characterise the farm types described by the farmers during the semi-structured interviews. The characterisation construction of the farm systems followed three steps: (1) Identification of the salient criteria mentioned by the farmers during the interviews (2) Subdivision of the salient criteria on the bases of other relevant criteria identified after the analysis of the data (3) the final step was to assign the twenty-eight farmers to the identified types in the sample. The resulted characterisation will be called Participatory typology in document.

There were two modifications done in the used methodology. The first modification was that the construction of the resulting typology was done after the semi-structured questionnaire was applied to the farmers; in contrast Kuivanen et al. (2016) used a collaborative approach with the farmers for the formulation of the typology. The second modification was that space-time used in this research, here farm systems present thirty-five years ago were characterised. While in the methodology described by Kuivanen et al. (2016) the characterisation was done two years ago.

2.4.2 Comparison of the typologies

In order to create understanding on the trajectories of change of the farming systems, the available statistical typology and the participatory typology were compared. This step was performed following a modified second part of the methodology presented in Kuivanen et al. (2016). The comparison of the typologies followed three steps: (1) Identification of the variables used in both typology methods to assign farmers in different groups (2) The construction of a checklist based on the variables used on each typology method to identify the main difference among the identified farm types of each methodology (3) The integration of the identified farm types of both methodologies, statistical and participatory, in one table to compare them.

The modification of this part of the methodology was done also regarding the time space used for the characterisation of the farm systems.

CHAPTER 3. Results

3.1 Semi-structured questionnaire

An initial description of the main characteristics of the farming systems present in past decades was obtained from the semi-structured questionnaire. An important trend was identified among the farmers in the community, eighteen of the twenty-eight selected farmers out-migrated from the community before engaging in farm activities (Table 4). Three time periods were identified for the out-migration activities (1) prior -1960, (2) from 1960 to 1971 and, (3) from 1980-1997.

After the identification of this trend, the analysis time period for the trajectories was establish in thirty-five-five years since the year when most of the farmers came back to the community was on 1980. Another interesting result is that two main reasons why the farmers came back to the community were identified. The first reason was because they took over the family farm, because farmers did not want to sell it. The second reason was, because the farmers retired from steady jobs in the capital cities and they were looking for a quiet place to retire, so they decided to take over the family farm.

From the results obtained it was also explained that in the past decades, a wage job in another farm was not predominant. Rather, the family used to work together in agricultural activities, or in case the family members did not consist of enough farmers, they used to practice gueza. This is a barter practice commonly used among farmers to help each other in the performance of agricultural activities. Some farmers expressed that this practice was also applied in the infrastructure maintenance of the community.

In regard of the cropping system, the milpa system was predominant. In the majority of the interviews the farmers expressed that since the family used to work together, the labour was shared equally. Also, the production was described as enough. Since the farmers were asked to recall information from thirty-five years ago they were able to only classify the yields as high, medium or low.

Table 4. Characteristics of the farms present thirty-five years ago in the community.

Variable Activity before Period Start year as Cropping Predominant Other grown Fertilizer Period of Herd Herd Poultry Equipment Labour Food supply Source of becoming before independent system crop crops farming size composition income Farmer farmer farming farmer

Luis Aguilar Off-farm work 1967- 1998 Intercrop maize/beans squash and Yes 1998- 10 cows and a No Animal traction barter Self- off-farm work in Mexico City 1997 fava beans 2004 pair of oxen production

Cesar Mendoza Off-farm work 1970- 1986 Intercrop maize/beans squash and Yes 1986- 25 Sheep and Yes Animal traction barter Self- wage work in Osorio in Mexico City 1985 fava beans 2001 goats production other farms and off-farm income

Lorenzo Ortiz Off-farm work 1970- 1980 Intercrop maize/beans fava beans Yes 1980 - To 180 Sheep and Yes Animal traction barter Self- Livestock and in Mexico City 1980 date pair of oxen production crop sales

Felix Sanchez No - 1980 Intercrop maize/beans fava beans Yes 1980- To 14 goats and No Animal traction family and Self- Livestock and Perez date cows; pair barter production off-farm work of oxen Lourdes Socorro No - 1980 Intercrop maize/beans squash and Yes 1985- To 2 cows Yes Animal traction family and Self- wage work in Ortiz fava beans date barter production other farms

Raymundo Off-farm work 1969- 1988 Intercrop maize/beans fava beans Yes 1988- 60 sheep Yes Animal traction barter Self- crop sales and Sandoval in Mexico City 1987 2002 production off-farm work

Sabino Rojas Off-farm work 1979- 1999 Intercrop maize/beans squash Yes 1999- To 19 goats and Yes Animal traction family Self- wage work in Espiritu in Mexico City 1998 date cows; pair production other farms and of oxen dairy products Florentino No - 1957 Intercrop maize/beans squash and Yes 1957- 35 sheep Yes Animal traction barter Self- livestock sales Morales fava beans 2011 production and off-farm income Alfonso Ramirez No - 1980 Intercrop maize/beans fava beans Yes 1980- 24 goats and No Animal traction barter Self- wage work in Mendoza 1990 cows; pair production other farms of oxen Luciano Mendoza Off-farm work 1971- 1987 Intercrop maize/beans squash Yes 1987- 35 sheep Yes Animal traction barter Self- wage work in in Mexico City 1986 2015 production other farms and dairy products Alberto Aguilar Out migration 1995- 1998 Intercrop maize/beans squash Yes 1998- To 25 sheep Yes Animal traction family and Self- crop sales, milk to the USA 1997 date hired production sales and wage labour work in other farms Mario del Aguila No - 1980 Intercrop maize/beans Lucerne Yes 1980- 25 sheep Yes Animal traction barter Self- off-farm income 1990 production Ines Aguilar Off-farm work 1971- 1997 Intercrop maize/beans squash and Yes 1997- To 82 sheep, cow Yes Animal traction family Self- crop sales and Santos in Mexico City 1996 fava beans date and donkey production off-farm income Demetria Cruz Off-farm work 1980- 1991 Intercrop maize/beans squash Yes 1991- To 32 sheep and Yes Animal traction barter Self- wage work in Ramirez in Mexico City 1990 date cows production other farms and off-farm income Lucila Osorio Out migration 1990- 2012 Intercrop maize/beans squash Yes 2013-To 1 cow Tractor family and Self- Crop sales, to the USA 2012 date hired production remittances and labour savings

Gustavo Aguilar No - 1973 Intercrop maize/beans squash and Yes 1987- To 13 sheep and No Animal traction barter Self- wage work in fava beans date cows production other farms Javier Lorenzo Off-farm work 1971- 1986 Monocrop maize squash and Yes 1986- 3 cow and Yes Animal traction family and Self- off-farm income Juarez Rojas in Mexico City 1985 fava beans 2000 horse barter production Elpidia Mendoza No - 1970 Intercrop maize/beans squash and Yes 1980- 12 goats and Yes Animal traction Family and Self- off-farm income fava beans 1990 pair of oxen barter production

Agustin Cruz off-farm work in 1958- 1970 Intercrop maize/beans squash and Yes 1970- 85 sheep, cow No Animal traction Hired Self- livestock sales, Tabasco 1969 fava beans 1990 and horses labour and production dairy products

barter and off-farm income Lorenzo Sandoval No - 1955 Intercrop maize beans, Yes 1970- 17 cow and No Animal traction family and Self- livestock and squash and 1980 pair of oxen barter production dairy products fav beans sales and off-

farm income Adelfo Osorio No - 1980 Intercrop maize fava beans, Yes 1980- 39 sheep and Yes Animal traction family and Self- livestock sales squash and 1990 pigs barter production and off-farm chickpea income Jesus Cruz Galicia No - 1979 Intercrop maize fava beans Yes 1980- To 50 sheep No Animal traction barter and Self- off-farm income and squash date family production

Omar Aguilar Out-migration 1997- 2005 Monocrop maize - Yes 2005-To 3 pigs Yes Tractor Hired Self- Livestock sales, for education 2005 date labour production off-farm income and market

purchase Galdino Paz Off-farm work 1981- 1985 Intercrop maizie/beans fava beans Yes 1985- To 57 sheep, cows No Animal traction family and Self- Livestock and in Mexico City 1985 and squash date and horses barter production crop sales

Manuel Ramirez No - 1984 Intercrop maize fava beans Yes 1984- 3 cow, pig and Yes Animal traction barter self- wage work in and squash 1990 donkey production others farms and off-farm income

Alberto Paz Out-migration 1956- 2003 Intercrop maize/beans Lucerne Yes 2003- To 17 sheep and Yes Animal traction family and Self- Livestock sales to Mexico City 2002 date cows hired production and off-farm and Veracruz labour and market income purchase Ramon Espinoza Off-farm work 1952- 1972 Intercrop maize/beans fava beans Yes 1975- 200 sheep and 1 Yes Animal traction family and self- livestock and Reyes in Mexico City 1972 and squash 1980 cow barter production crop sales, off- farm income Teresa Ortiz off-farm work in 1960- 2013 Monocrop maize - Yes 2013- To 10 Sheep Yes Tractor hired Self- off-farm income Oaxaca city 2013 date labour production and market purchase

3.2 timeline construction

Figure 3. General timeline description of the changes experienced in Santa Catarina Tayata.

A general timeline of the local changes described by the farmers was constructed (Figure 3). The information presented in this timeline was checked with an informal conversation with the farmers while helping them with hand weeding activities. Another source of information were informal interviews with local authorities and with the ejidatarios representative.

Most of the registered local change events occurred between the period of 1990-2010. This time period concurs with the time the changes on agricultural policies were occurring at the regional level. Also some changes related with land use were identified. For example, the prohibition of goat rearing in 1976, in communal land was related with soil erosion problems. In more recent years, 2005 and 2013, the reforestation campaign took place in the community to reduce soil erosion due to speed of run off during rain-season. The last identified change regarding land use, was the construction of two small earth dams for water reservoir purpose.

3.3 Participatory typology

The farmers were classified in two main groups: (1) The sedentary group and (2) The out-migration group. This was the salient variable obtained after the general systems description. After analysing in more detail the characteristics described by the farmers, the two main groups were subdivided in six resulting groups (Table 5). The variables used to classify the farmers in each of the resulted groups were: (i) Herd size and composition and (ii) Source of income.

For the herd size it was classified as small when the herd contained less than thirty-five animals, medium when it was between thirty-five to forty animals in the herd and large when the herd size were more than forty animals. The composition was take as an important variable because the diversity of the herd composition was depending on the economic resources the farmers had. Poultry was present in most of the farms as a source of meat and eggs. The small ruminants refer to goats and sheep, which were a common livestock in the farms. Cattle was an important part of the farm, a team of oxen where present in most of the farms since they were used to pull the plowing instruments. Cows were considered as a way of insurance.

The sedentary group was dived in three groups according with the described variables:

Farm type A: Farmers in this group reported medium food self-sufficiency. Cattle was the predominant animal in the farm. The main source of income was poultry sales, and some farmers mentioned that they looked for off-farm work in nearby communities.

Farm type B: Farmers in this group reported a steady income from livestock sales, since the herd size was considered as large. Some years farmers looked for off-farm work to complement their income. The reported food self-sufficiency was high.

Farm type C: Farmers in this group had a medium herd size, but the livestock sales was an important source of income. The farmers reported a high food self-sufficiency. This group of farmers also complement their income with off-farm income.

The out-migration group was divided in three groups according with the variables, farmers in this group were considered as wealthy.

Farm type D: Farmers in this group reported a steady income from livestock sales. Farmers complement their income with non-farm income. The farm self-sufficiency was considered as medium since they complement their food supply with purchase in the local market.

Farm type E: This group resembles to farm type D. The farm self-sufficiency was considered as high. Farmers in this group invest part of their saving from non-farm income to buy agricultural lands.

Farm type F: Farmers in this group reported high food self-sufficiency. They also obtained a steady income from livestock sales. This group of farmers complement their income with non-farm income.

Table 5 .Characterisation of farming systems present thirty-five years ago using Participatory typology.

Variables Type A Type B Type C Type D Type E Type F

Sedentary group Out-migrating group Out-migration before No No No Yes Yes Yes becoming a farmer

Cropping system

Land use and production Maize and legumes Maize/legumes and Maize/legumes and Maize/legumes and Maize/legumes and Maize/legumes and orientation squash squash squash squash squash

Inputs and equipment Fertilizers+ Animal Fertilizers + Animal Fertilizers + Animal Fertilizers + Animal Fertilizers + Animal Fertilizers + Animal traction traction traction traction traction traction

Self-sufficiency Medium High High Medium High High

Labour

Total labour input Low Medium Medium Low High High

Family & exchange/hired Barter labour Mostly family Barter labour and Mostly family Family and barter Family and barter labour family labour labour labour

Livestock

Herd size Small Large Medium Low Medium Large

Main composition Cattle and poultry Small ruminants, Cattle, small Cattle, small Small ruminants Small ruminants porcine, poultry ruminants and ruminants and (sheep), cattle and (sheep), and poultry poultry poultry poultry

Socio-economics

Main income source Crop and livestock sales, Livestock sales, off-farm Crop and livestock Non-farm income Non-farm income, Non-farm income, wage work in other income sales, off-farm and livestock sales livestock and crop livestock and crop farms, off-farm income income sales sales

Income investment Household necessities, Household necessities, Household Household Household Household inputs and study inputs necessities, inputs necessities, inputs necessities, inputs necessities, inputs expenses and study expenses 15

3.4 Comparison of the statistical and participatory typologies.

To compare the characteristics of the resulted farm groups from the participatory typology with the characteristics of the farm groups from the statistical typology, Table 6 was developed.

The differences among the farming systems from thirty-five years ago and the present farming system in the community were identified in four sections:

1) Changes on land use and production orientation: milpa system was the predominant cropping system in the community from thirty-five years ago. Mono-cropping is the salient agricultural practice in present farming systems, from the information of the statistical typology. Also the extension on which the maize is cultivate is variable among the farm types.

2) Changes in the inputs and equipment employed for farm activities: chemical fertilizers are shown as an important input for crop production in the present farming systems. A descend use of animal traction is also registered in the results from the statistical typology. The fertilizers mentioned by farmers in the statistical typology was the integration of manure and straw in the agricultural lands.

A different form of fertilization used by the farmers thirty-five years ago was the so-called mobile stable. This was described as a rustic shed for the livestock, it was made from pieces of wood and it could be dismantled to moved it to a different place in the same plot.

3) Predominant use of hired labour in the farms: this is a predominant source of income for farm workers nowadays. Farmers mentioned that the practice of barter labour has decreased in the last ten years. They express that youths tend to out-migrate rather to engage in farming activities. Farmers perceived this trend as a disadvantage since elderly farmers are the one who remain in charge of the farms.

4) Higher variability in the source of income: this was one of the major changes observed among the farming systems. In the present government support income programs, remittances and off- farm income are the predominant source of income in the farm systems. In contrast, livestock and crop sales together with off-farm income were the most important source of income in the farm systems present thirty-five years ago.

Table 6. Comparison of the main characteristics of the farming systems using (P) participatory typology and (S) statistical typology.

Participatory typology Statistical typology

Variables P S Type A Type B Type C Type D Type E Type F Type 1 Type 2 Type 3 Type 4 Demographic: household X Medium family size, Large family size, Low family size and High Large family size and size and composition/ low migration rate and Low migration rate migration rate high migration rate migration rate

Out-migration before X No No No Yes Yes Yes becoming a farmer

Cropping system

Land use and production X X Maize and Maize/ Maize/ Maize/ Maize/ Maize/ Low area for Maize and Medium area for Medium area for Maize Low area for Maize orientation legumes low area for legumes Maize and medium and medium area for and lowest area for dominated legumes and legumes and legumes and legumes and legumes and area for legumes legumes legumes squash squash squash squash squash

Inputs and equipment X Only Fertilizers+ Fertilizers + Fertilizers + Fertilizers + Fertilizers + Fertilizers + High dependency on High dependency High dependency on Low dependency on inpu Animal traction Animal traction Animal traction Animal traction Animal traction Animal traction chemical on chemical chemical chemical t

Self-sufficiency X X medium High High Medium High High 9.38 months 11.45 months 11.59 months 8.86 months

Labour

Total labour input X X Low Medium Medium Low High High Medium High High Medium

Family & exchange/hired X X Barter labour Mostly family Barter labour and Mostly family Family and hired Family and Hired labour Hired labour Hired labour Hired labour labour family labour labour hired labour

Livestock Herd size X X Small herd Large Medium Small Medium Large High High Low Medium

Main composition X Cattle and poultry Small ruminants, Cattle, small Cattle, small Small ruminants Small ruminants porcine, poultry ruminants and ruminants and (sheep), cattle (sheep), and poultry poultry and poultry poultry

Socio-economics

Main income source X X Crop and livestock Livestock sales, Crop and livestock Non-farm Non-farm income, Non-farm Government support Crop production, Remittances, off-farm Off-farm income sales, wage work off-farm income sales, off-farm income and livestock and crop income, and animal production off-farm activities activities and government in other farms, income livestock sales sales livestock and support off-farm income crop sales

Income investment X Household Household Household Household Household Household necessities, inputs necessities, inputs necessities, inputs necessities, necessities, inputs necessities, and study inputs inputs and expenses study expenses

3.4 Farming systems trajectories

Figure 4. A) Graphical representation of the transition of the farms in the community over the last thirty-five years. B) Vertical spider web representation of the traceability of the farming systems trajectories.

The distribution of the farming systems present thirty-five years ago among the present farming systems present today in the community are represented in Figure 4A and 4B. A quantitative representation of this results are provided on table 7.

Table 7.Quantitative representation of the traceability of the trajectories of the farming systems.

Statistical Type 1 Type 2 Type 3 Type 4 Total

Participatory Type A 2 1 0 1 Type B 2 0 1 0 Type C 1 0 2 0 Type D 1 1 4 1 Type E 1 2 2 0 Type F 1 2 3 0 Total 8 6 12 2 28

From figure 3A is possible to understand how does the farmers move between the farm types identified with each of the typology methods. On the left side are represented the six farm types resulted from the participatory typology and on the right side are represented the four farm types resulted from the statistical typology. The thickness of the arrows represents the number of farmers that moves from the participatory farm types to each of the statistical farm types.

To generate a better understanding of the relevance of this part of the results, a general description of the characteristics of the four farm types resulted from the statistical typology are shown on table 8. In table 9 a summarized version of the characteristics of each of the six farm types resulted from the participatory typology are shown.

Table 8. Description of the characteristics of the four farm types determined statistic methods.

Farm Descriptive name Main characteristics Type 1 Low-income and government support Medium Food Self-sufficiency, medium maize production, low total income income programs farm type 2 Largest scale and diversified farm type High food self-sufficiency, maize production destined to animal, income rely on off-farm activities 3 Remittance dependent farm type High food self-sufficiency, high migration rates, remittance and government programmes important source of income 4 Medium scale and off-farm income farm Medium food self-sufficiency, medium maize production, income rely on off- type farm activities

Table 9. description of the characteristics of the sic farm types determined in the participatory typology.

Farm Type Main characteristics Sedentary group A Medium food self-sufficiency, barter labour, diverse source of income, small herd size B High food self-sufficiency, Family labour, livestock sales and off-farm income C High food self-sufficiency, barter labour, crop and livestock sales Out-migration group D Medium food self-sufficiency, Family labour, non-farm income E High food self-sufficiency, Family and hired labour, non-farm income, crop and livestock sales F High food self-sufficiency, Family and hired labour, large herd size, non-farm income

From the sedentary farmers group, from the participatory typology, the majority of the farmers move to the group one and three, and only one farmer move to group from the statistical typology. Group one and three are groups which become dependent on other sources of income, such as remittances and government support income programs. This may indicate that out-migration might be an influent factor in the decrease of farm activities as the main source of income.

From the out-migration group of farmers, the majority move to group three. The rest of the farmers are distributed among the rest of the groups, but groups three and two present also high rates of mobility. The same analysis description done for the sedentary group is applicable for the out-migration group, this indicate that most the agriculture activities does not represent a steady source of income for the farmers in the municipality. According with the description, and personal informal talks, farmers are in the need to seek for alternative source of income since the income obtain from the agricultural products is not enough to ensure a livelihood security.

An integrated approach of the changes and effects produced by policy changes in Mexico during the 1980s is schematised in Fig 5. Represented at the first level in this figure are the overall changes that occurred in policy, in the second level is described how this changes took place at the institutional scale, and in the last level is the produced impact over the smallholder farmers by changes that occurred in the first two levels. This last part of the scheme was constructed with base on farmers’ perceptions.

Figure 5. Schematic representation of the how does the changes in policy influence the changes occurred in farming systems in Santa Catarina Tayata.

CHAPTER 4. DISCUSSION AND RECOMENDATIONS

This research work provides evidence of the changes occurred in the farming systems in a rural community in the south of Mexico, between 1980 and 2015. The typology approach was used as tool to characterise the farming systems present on 1980. The traceability of the changes was possible by comparing the results of this characterisation with a typology of the farming systems presents on 2015. The advantage of using a participatory farm typology is the categorization of farms into homogeneous groups with similar characteristics; this homogeneity allows the comparison of these groups in order to understand farmer´s decision processes (Iraizoz et. al., 2007). As pointed out by Chopin et. al. ( 2015) most farm typologies are static, since they are made for a particular year and do not show changes over time.

In this study the construction of a participatory typology for the farm systems present thirty-five years ago allow the complementarity of farmers’ perspective with scientific knowledge, towards a comprehensive understanding of the multiple dimensions of farming systems (Righi et al., 2011). Nevertheless, the typology construction based on the results from the semi-structured questionnaires and the timeline construction have intrinsic limitations since the collection data rely on recall information from the characteristics of past farming system. As mentioned by Rueff et. al.( 2010) relaying only on data from farmers´ memories could present vagueness and imprecision in the analysis. Therefore, other source of data should be used to complement the data used for the typology construction.

Previous research works have focused on the analysis of farm change trajectories in long time periods (one or two decades). (Rueff et al., 2012) developed a method to assess the local diversity of family farms change trajectories trough the 1950-2013 period by analysing twenty-four farms which existed permanently in a Pyrenees mountains area. Nevertheless, in this study farms that existed permanently in the community were not reliable source of information. Since the out-migration was a predominant trend among the farmers in early decades of the characterisation.

The use of only one method for the characterising farming systems thirty-five years ago was other limiting factor faced during the development of this study. Base on the results the use of a complementary method for the analysis and characterisation of farming systems in a long term period would bring more accuracy and reliability on the results. The importance of triangulating the results from two different approach is described in Chantre and Cardona ( 2014). In this research the trajectories of French field crop farmers are analysed by combining an agronomical and sociological approach in order to gain understanding of the long-term process of change in the farming practices.

Since the results obtained in this research are focused on changes on farming system, the combination of the analysis on the landscape change will be recommended. This recommendation is based on the existence interaction between farming systems and the landscape, with farms in two roles: contributing to and benefiting from the landscape features and services (Valbuena et al., 2014). A method for further researches focused in this area could be the one described by Chopin et al. (2015). The method presented by the authors asses farming evolution in time and space by drivers of change in agricultural landscape by applying spatial correlation analysis using a geographical data base of individual farm fields. The authors mention that the importance for the analysis of changes at both scales, farm and landscape, can help decision makers to formulate farm-scale policies intended to modify farming systems.

The advantages of the method is the use of a dynamic typology, which is defined as a multi-year classification of farmers, to observe the tendencies of farm types changes. By generating a farm transition from type-to-type during the period of years analysed, the authors were able to detect a spatial correlation in the transitions (Figure 6). Since the method use a geographical database of individuals field to trace the changes of farming systems, can bring a new perspective for the analysis of the changes occurred over time. Nevertheless, should be considered that the availability of geographical data may represent a limiting factor for the reproducibility of the method. But it can be replicated for the present farming systems and trace the changes in recent years.

Figure 6. Circular representation of the transition of farm among types. Source: Chopin et al. (2015)

For the crop diversity, this research was not able to report the changes occurred over the time due to the absence of data. On the one hand, farmers do not keep record or characterise the plant species in the area. On the other hand, there were insufficient data which report on the changes in crop diversity over the years in the country. Regarding crop productivity, only qualitative measures were obtained due to the same reasons explained for the crop diversity. These two topics would be need better methodological explorations to obtain reliable results.

The study of temporal trajectories of farming system change in Mexico has been little documented up to now. Speelman et al. (2014) used the trajectories of change in land-use management and social organization in Chiapas, Mexico to analyse the adaptive or coping responses of the smallholder farmers to the market dynamics and governmental economic, and nature conservation policies applied in the country. In this study the trajectories are used to only analyse how does the community respond to the changes occurred but do not trace the changes over time.

Knowledge and understanding of past changes in farming systems appears as one of the key factors to help securing the future of agricultural systems and land use at the farm scale (Rueff et al., 2012). An integrated assessment of sustainable, economic and social dimension at the farm scale can provide knowledge on farm-land scape interaction, which is useful for decision process in sustainable development. Therefore, the results of this research can be further combined with economic and social studies for the future development of agricultural sustainable scenarios.

Conclusions Even though the trace of the changes occurred in the farming systems present thirty-five years ago in the Santa Catarina Tayata community was successful, the construction of a participatory typology for the present time is recommended to test the accuracy of the comparative approach. With based on the results obtained of future researches, improves can be done in the methodology described in this research. The constant involvement of the farmers (e.g. the timeline construction) give positive acceptance from the farmers ,therefore, the integration of participatory approach in the research would increase the possibility of success and acceptance of future redesigns of the farming systems.

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1. Timeline constructed with Lorenzo Sandoval.

Appendix 2. Farm types obtained after the PCA analysis and the variables used for the analysis.