Society, agriculture or forest to preserve environment in the peri-urban space in Milpa Alta at the South of Mexico City

H Losada, J Cortés, J Rivera, J Vieyra and D Grande

Sustainable Agricultural Development Area, Department of Biology of Reproduction, Division of Biological and Health Sciences,
Autonomous Metropolitan University Iztapalapa, Av. San Rafael Atlixco No. 186, Col. Vicentina, Iztapalapa, C.P. 09340, México D.F.
hrlc@xanum.uam.mx

Abstract

The phenomenon of the use of space is of vital importance for researchers studying city agriculture due to the need to set out public policies that maintain the current system of land use. Recently however, the government of Mexico City has declared Milpa Alta, along with other delegations, as an area for ecological protection. Although initially this legislation could be considered important, at the present time there is a tendency to impose conservation policies which restrict agricultural activity and at the same time generate social problems amongst the local rural population.  The procedure used to study the system included direct interviews with small scale farmers in the area with the aim of establishing the social, technological and economical factors involved in local production. Producers were selected at random on the basis of their visible presence in the fields or involvement in agriculturally related household activities in the five villages within the zone known as “terraces”. The results reported in the present research demonstrated that the small scale farmers of the peri-urban space of Milpa Alta behave “ecologically” and make rational use of the renewable resources that brings them close to the demands for sustainability required for an ecologically protected area.

Key words: Ecology, small scale farmers, spatial distribution

Sociedad, agricultura, o bosque como recursos para preservar el medio ambiente en el espacio peri-urbano en Milpa Alta, al sur de la Ciudad de México.

Resumen

El fenómeno del uso del espacio es de vital importancia para los investigadores que estudian la agricultura de ciudad debido a la necesidad de precisar los órdenes públicos que mantienen el sistema actual en la utilización del suelo. Recientemente, el gobierno de Ciudad de México ha declarado Milpa Alta, junto con otras delegaciones, como área para la protección ecológica.. Aunque inicialmente esta legislación se podría considerar importante, hay actualmente una tendencia a imponer las políticas de conservación que restringen actividad agrícola y al mismo tiempo generan problemas sociales entre la población rural local. El procedimiento utilizado para estudiar el sistema fue por medio de entrevistas directas con small scale farmers con la finalidad de conocer los factores sociales, tecnológicos y económicos presentes en la producción. Los productores fueron seleccionados al azar en base a su presencia en los campos de cultivo o bien aquellos implicados en actividades relacionadas con agricultura dentro de los cinco pueblos dentro de la zona conocida como “terrazas”. Los resultados reportados en la presente investigación muestran que los small scale farmers en el área peri-urbana de Milpa Alta se comportan “ecológicamente” y hacen el uso racional de sus recursos renovables lo que los acerca a la meta de sustentabilidad requerido para un área ecológica protegida.

Palabras clave: pequeños productores, distribución espacial, ecología

Introduction

Milpa Alta is one of the sixteen political delegations of Mexico City. It has a surface of approximately 33,000 hectares of  forest, and 7,000 for the cultivation of nopal (Opuntia ficus-indica L.) a variety consumed as a vegetable, maize (Zea mayz L.) and other crops, as well as small urban areas (5% of the total surface) (INEGI 2000). This means an important characteristic of Milpa Alta is that it is in the process of transition from rural to urban and can thus be classified as a peri-urban area.

Understanding the phenomenon of the use of space is of vital importance for researchers studying city agriculture due to the need to set out public policies that maintain the current system of land use. Recently however, the government of Mexico City has declared Milpa Alta, along with other delegations, as an area for ecological protection. (Balrazar 2001). Although initially this legislation could be considered important, at the present time there is a tendency to impose conservation policies which restrict agricultural activity and at the same time generate social problems amongst the local rural population.

Research carried out on specific crops such as nopal and maize have demonstrated that the area’s small scale farmers manage their natural resources in a rational and close to sustainable way. For this reason we considered it important to make an overall evaluation of the region’s agricultural activity. The objective of the present work was to study agriculture and livestock raising as two main activities which together integrate the current pattern of land use in Milpa Alta.

Methodology

The physiological characteristics of the area studied have been previously described by Losada et al (1996a). The procedure used to study the system included direct interviews with small scale farmers in the area with the aim of establishing the social, technological and social factors involved in local production. Producers were selected at random on the basis of their visible presence in the fields or involvement in agriculturally related household activities in the five villages within the zone known as “the terraces” (Rivera 2002). A total of 43 questionnaires were applied and analyzed using the SPSS programme (SPSS statistical software 2002). The results obtained were reported in means and frequencies following the conventional procedures (Casley 1992).

Results

Social features

The mean values for the composition of the small scale farmers’ families were in the range of 5 to 9 members (84%). In relation to the educational level as an indicator of the population’s homogeneity, most of the producers reported studies at primary level (47%) and secondary (37%) while only 16% of the sample studied had reached some form of higher education. As expected, the producers’ main activity was agriculture (67%) associated with commerce (16%), while a small percentage reported earning extra money from local jobs in the service sector (17%). These rural families’ daily lives involved household duties and activities on their agricultural holdings. The activities performed exclusively by men were fewer (29%) and focused on agricultural activities and livestock management, whereas children and women participated in a wider range of activities (70%). The established forms of knowledge transmission are grouped in Table 1.

Technical features

Most of the producers cultivated under a seasonal rain regime (77%) while a small proportion reported irrigating their land (23%). A little over half the small scale farmers surveyed owned land holdings of between 1 and 6 hectares (56%), a smaller percentage owned less than 1 hectare (24%), while larger holdings between 4 and 25 hectares were distributed amongst the remaining 20%. Land tenure is in overall terms communal, but by tradition private property is recognized, which partly explains the existence of holdings of up to 7 hectares which include a combination of land devoted to agriculture, natural pasture and woodland.

Half the producers chose to practice agriculture (50%) while only 9% were exclusively involved in livestock raising. 41% of the sample combined agriculture and livestock. The biological diversity of the crops in the area is presented in Table 2.

The main crops in the area included maize and nopal, the former grown as a monocrop or in association with squash (Curcubita spp), chilli (Capsicum spp) and beans (Phaseolus Vulgaris L). This association is similar to traditional systems in other parts of Mexico. In the case of nopal, most producers preferred monocrop production while one producer associated it with flowers (geranium) in order to earn extra cash income in local markets. The rest of the crops were of minor importance.

The use of external inputs i.e. improved seeds and pesticides by producers was extremely limited as can be seen in Table 3.

In contrast to the evidence of limited use of external inputs, the most widely used source of fertilizer amongst the producers was cattle, sheep and chicken manure, while only a small percentage used inorganic sources (see Table 4).

Biological diversity with regard to livestock (Table 5) indicated a preference for rearing poultry and pigs alone or linked into a backyard production system (Losada et al. 1997). Similarly, the preference for sheep as opposed to cattle reflected the greater acceptance of the former amongst the producers as part of an agrosilvopastoral system reported in the area (Losada et al 1996c) In view of the low prices for unpasteurized milk as the result of competition from industrially treated milk, in the zone studied cows are considered as donors of dung rather than primarily as milk producers. The presence of goats and horses was minimal. The number of animals owned by the rural families surveyed ranged from 1 to 25  as shown in Table 5.

The range of breeds or types of animals and stabling (Table 6) presented was limited with a predominance of local breeds in the case of poultry, pigs, sheep and horses. Most of the animals were kept in stockyards attached to each household in order to permit maximum care and avoid losses.

Most of the feedstuffs used included locally grown agricultural products and by-products with a small percentage of what can be classified as external inputs such as concentrates and Lucerne produced on irrigated land as shown in Table 7.

Animals are keep with the aim of obtaining a wide range of products which are presented in Table 8.

Most of the producers reported using their animals and products in general (vegetable and /or animal) for their own household consumption (55%). However, a significant proportion reported not doing so a decision that may be influenced by the type of product (perishable) or its origin (agricultural, animal etc.). Producers reported using different means of transport for getting products out of the fields. These include: taxi (4.8%), animal traction (9.8%), and manually (wheelbarrow, 12.2%). Nevertheless, most producers reported using vans (88%) which they either owned or hired. The products are sold through five different channels (Table 9).

The presence of middlemen was small as most of the products were sold directly from the producers’ homes, at the weekly market and in neighbouring towns.

Environmental features

The use of the forest by the community of Milpa Alta includes a wide range of functions, one of which is related to the use of wild animals to increase or diversify the local population’s meat consumption (Table 10).

Discussion

The results reported in the present research demonstrated that the small scale farmers of the peri-urban space of Milpa Alta behave “ecologically” and make rational use of the renewable resources that brings them close to the demands for sustainability required for an ecologically protected area.

The composition of the areas’s rural families, in the range of 7 to 8 members, is similar to that reported by Rivera (2002) in the same area, but contrasts greatly with those values reported by urban spaces where the mean number of family members is five (Losada 1997). A possible explanation for this phenomenon would be the campesino families’ need for greater availability of manpower to participate in different tasks in the fields , including those productive activities carried out in the household yard. This suggestion is confirmed by the values reported for activity in the fields, together with local commerce, which together constitute the main sources of income (83%) for these families.

With regard to the educational level, most of the population (83%) reported having primary and secondary level studies which confirms values we reported previously for the areas of the terraces (Losada 1996a) and for the nearby chinampas (Soriano 1999). In this sense, it is clear that educational level has little or no effect on agricultural activity in the area (or productivity, see Table 1), since  the forms of acquisition of knowledge are oral and passed down through the family or, through the personal experience of producing by  trial and error. There is an apparent contradiction between the educational level of the producer and the forms of knowledge acquisition. However, most of the area’s agricultural and livestock production systems can be classified as traditional and consequently have low technological demands or the complexity of the system is reduced.

Regarding values related to biological diversity, regional agriculture showed a poor pattern of cultivated species with marked tendencies towards monocrop maize and nopal production as the main crops. In contrast, the diversity reported involved the production of other crops in association with the dominant maize and nopal, or to the temporary use of old nopal plantations in order to take advantage of the high nutrient content (NPK) present in the humus (Rivera 2002).

An explanation for the fall in biological diversity of the area’s crops could be found in the agroecological conditions of the regional space which is part of the mountainous structure of the south of the Valley of Mexico, with a gradient of between 20 and 60 percent, and shallow volcanic soils (20-50 cm in depth), brown in colour, half loam and sandy in texture and poor rainfall of between 600 and 800 mm (Losada 1996b). Under these conditions the area has little diversity in its biomass (Rivera 1993) in contrast, for example, to the neighbouring low wetland area dedicated to cultivation in chinampas (Soriano 2005) where biomass diversity is three times greater. Because of this, the tendency towards monocrop production could be considered a restrictive factor with regard to local and /or regional sustainability.

According to the literature, the disadvantages of a monocrop model as opposed to one involving multiple crops would be related to the loss of genetic diversity because of the use of single varieties as in the case of maize; the widest range of endogamic plants occurring in the case of nopal. This situation causes the extraction of nutrients from the soil and the presence of opportunist diseases and pests that would tend to make crops more dependent on the use of external inputs. However, to place all the responsibility for monocrop production on the small scale farmers would not necessarily be fair as the area has been subject to government policies derived from the green revolution and to date, a clear policy limiting the use of agrochemicals in this ecological protection area does not exist.

In contrast to the drop in agricultural diversity, the established production system for livestock, except for bees and fish, showed the normal pattern that prevails in the rest of the country. In view of the fact that the preference of the rural families interviewed towards the exclusive holding of livestock proved to be very low (9%), the predominance of  poultry and pigs would be part of a the backyard model of production favored by most rural families (Rivera 1993.) The evidence reported with respect to the predominant type of animals (local breeds), the system of stabling and the components of the diet based on the use of kitchen waste and locally produced crops (see Tables 6 and 7) would confirm our suggestion. An interesting aspect which stood out was the presence for sheep and dairy cattle for the production of meat/wool and milk/ cheese respectively, as well as for the production of manure as a fertilizer for local crops (see Table 4). Previous studies have shown the importance of sheep (Losada 1998) that links animals with a rational use of woodland and with the agriculture areas which border on it.

The data produced during the present study shows a low level of extraction of natural flora and fauna in relation to the region’s extensive forest cover. In this sense it would appear that the campesino’s policy of preserving natural resources has been induced by the regime of communal property that has existed since pre-Hispanic times. This suggestion is confirmed by the existence of ceremonies carried out by the inhabitants of the area’s 11 villages related to obtaining wood for fuel, with the aim of strengthening community bonds.

Milpa Alta falls within an area in which land used for agricultural and livestock purposes in an area earmarked as an ecological conservation area. This seemingly positive measure in fact generates problems for the small scale farmers whose way of life is compromised. So far in Mexico such policy decisions are not informed by real outcomes or the needs of the people who inhabit and use the space. Instead they tend to be based on theoretical suppositions and are also influenced by the demands of privileged sectors of society for new urban development and recreational facilities such as golf courses. This is backed up by the fact that to date, there are no rural development policies in place, for example tax deductions to discourage the use of external inputs, as would be expected in an ecological protection area. In contrast, the small scale farmer population of Milpa Alta has developed an agricultural technology that provides evidence of being closer to the sort of sustainable development required by the metropolitan area of Mexico City. This situation would confirm the need to include rural families and in general the whole population living in the rural space in the design of development policies that will affect them.

Ackowledgements

This paper is linked to the project:” Productivity of an agrosilvopastoril system from the Ajusco as a sustainable technogical  offer”, sponsored by the Consejo Divisional from the CBS Division. The authors wish to thank the small scale farmers of Milpa Alta for the information which made this study possible. Also the authorities of the Autonomous Metropolitan University for the facilities provided and LPA Ulises Graciano for the analysis of the data.

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Received 2 October 2008; Accepted 30 January 2009; Published 1 February 2009

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