Environment on the Yucat´an Peninsula
4.8 The Economics of Contemporary Maya Agricultural Practices
The carrying capacity of the land can be estimated from ethnographic studies be-gun in the 1930s. Harvest figures for corn vary with soil and weather conditions (see Table 4.1). Steggerda (1941:149), working in several communities (including Pist´e and Chan Kom) near the archaeological site of Chich´en Itz´a in the state of Yucat´an, estimated that the land could support eight times as many people as were living on it during his fieldwork there in the 1930s (see Figure 4.1 for locations
Table 4.1. Ethnographic agricultural data.
Person- Fallow days of period/
Harvest Area Harvest agricultural cultivation
Community per planted per per activity period
(date of study) person family (ha) hectare per year (years)
Pist´e plus 30 bushels 4 42 bushels 72 10/2
neighboring (1,056 kg) (1,480 kg)
communities (1930s)a
Chan Kom 498 kg 2.88 831 kg 68–122 7/2
(1931) (0.64/pers.)b
Cob´a ? 4.17 289 kg 75–157 ?
(1980–1981) (0.62/pers.)b (500 kg est.
normal year)
Pich ? 2 (est.) 1,183 kg ? 7/2
(1981–1983)
Xocen 617 kg 4.16 1,002 kg ? 7/2
(1988–1989) (0.74/pers.)b
Note: Locations of communities are shown in Figure 4.1.
aFigures are the average reported by Steggerda (1941) for the 1930s; the number of farmers inter-viewed was not specified.
bEstimated using 5.6 individuals/household.
CARIBBEAN SEA G U L F O F
M E X I C O
100 0 100 200 km
Pich
Chan Kom Pisté Xocen
Cobá Y u c a t á n
Q u i n t a n a R o o C a m p e c h e
Figure 4.1. Communities with ethnographic information on the Yucat´an peninsula.
of the communities discussed here). He based his calculations on an average plot size of 4 ha producing 168 bushels of corn, of which 64 were used to feed the typical family for the year; this production rate is 2.5 times that needed for sub-sistence, allowing 104 bushels for storage against crop losses in bad years and to sell for cash for other household needs. The number of days dedicated to agri-culture averaged only 72 per year, the fallow period was 10 years, and the period of cultivation was 2 years, for a 1:5 fallow ratio. Redfield and Villa Rojas ([orig.
1934], 1962:52–53) reported that in Chan Kom in 1930 an average of 2.88 ha were planted per family. The average harvest was 2,394 kg, or 831 kg/ha. The estimate for consumption was 1,092 kg for an average family in one year (26 cargas, nor-mal basket loads weighing approximately 42 kg each: Redfield and Villa Rojas, 1962:56), so that production was 2.2 times the consumption needs, compared with the 2.5 figure found by Steggerda (1941). The number of person-days dedicated to agriculture varied from 68 to 122 among the three cases recorded (Redfield and Villa Rojas, 1962:80). The amount planted varied with the price of corn, with more labor being invested in other productive activities during years when the price was low (Redfield and Villa Rojas, 1962:52).
The harvests reported near Chich´en Itz´a for the 1930s are substantially higher than those reported for Cob´a, Quintana Roo, in 1980, a year described as a bad one by the three families intensively studied (Daltabuit-Godas et al., 1988:71). The average area planted by these families was 4.17 ha, with an average yield of only 289 kg/ha. The harvests reported by Redfield and Villa Rojas (1962) and Steggerda (1941) were above average. The Cob´a families studied in the 1970s were planting 4.17 ha/family, nearly 50% more land per family than was planted in Chan Kom in the 1930s, but their average family size was 6.7 persons, or 24% greater than the 5.4 persons per family in Chan Kom. Dividing by the number of persons per average family in the two studies yields an average of 0.53 ha of land planted per family member in Chan Kom and 0.62 ha per family member in Cob´a. The average harvest of the three families of Cob´a was 1,095 kg, less than half the average harvest in Chan Kom (2,394 kg), providing only 163.4 kg/person for consumption compared with an average of 443.3 kg/person in Chan Kom.
Daltabuit-Godas et al.’s (1988) nutritional studies indicate that this harvest re-sulted in a nutritional deficit of calories and vitamins. Thus, average plantings of 0.53–0.62 ha/person do not produce enough in bad years to meet the minimum caloric needs of the population. Stored corn can buffer bad years, but desire for consumer products tempts families to sell rather than store their surplus.
In average years, 0.63 ha/person must be planted in swidden to provide sub-sistence needs; with a 1:5 fallow ratio (2 years of cropping followed by 10 years of fallow), the number of persons supported per square kilometer would only be
(100 ha/km2)(0.63 ha/person)(1/5 [fallow ratio]), or 12.6. With an average 2:5 fallow ratio, which is increasingly common, the carrying capacity would be 25.
However, 10 years is the shortest fallow understood by the elders as adequate to sustain good corn production with herbicides and fertilizer; in the absence of these costly modern inputs, a 20-year fallow is recommended for both the full recuper-ation of soil and the production of sufficient forest to fuel a fire hot enough to kill weed seeds and insect pests throughout the swidden plot (Faust, field notes from Pich, Campeche, and Sahcab´a, Yucat´an).
More details of harvest, labor costs, calorie consumption, and nutrition are available in the ethnography of Cob´a. The harvest reported for the 1980 research year required between 75 and 157 days of labor (Faust, field notes from Pich, Campeche, and Sahcab´a, Yucat´an:77), averaging 114 days compared with the 72 days reported by Steggerda (1941) for research conducted in the 1930s. The aver-age annual consumption for a typical family was calculated at 5.7 million calories (including beans, squash seeds, etc.), compared with an average production of only 4.7 million calories (Daltabuit-Godas et al., 1988:97). Clearly, the families’ caloric needs were not met by milpa production during that year. Shortfalls of this type are traditionally compensated for by careful storage of corn or by the purchase of corn with money either borrowed from the local elite or saved from other productive activities. Borrowing often leads to a cycle of repeated borrowing and repayment with interest.
Harvest information is also available for 1989 and 1990 for Xocen, Yucat´an.
Ter´an and Rasmussen (1994:253–254) give the average amount planted as 104 mecates, or 4.16 ha/family (for the families interviewed), with an average har-vest of 1,173 kg/ha for 1990 and 831 kg/ha for 1989. Even in the relatively poor year studied (1989), average milpa production was 3,457 kg of corn (4.16 ha at 831 kg/ha).[5] While mean family size is not given for Xocen, if the average for Chan Kom and Cob´a (5.6 persons) is used (indeed, it is the number commonly used for pre-Columbian household size), dividing the average production by 5.6 results in an estimate of 617 kg of corn per person per year. The area of land planted per person is 0.74 ha in Xocen; with a 1:5 fallow ratio, the carrying capacity of the land in use would be 100/(.74)(5), or 27 persons/km2(assuming that the average amount planted does indeed provide the nutritional needs of the family for the year). With the population of Xocen at 1,158 (Ter´an and Rasmussen, 1994:101) and the total land area at 4,820 ha (Ter´an and Rasmussen, 1994:170), or 48.2 km2, this yields an average of 4.16 ha/person, or a mean density of 24 persons/km2, just slightly less than the 27-person carrying capacity estimated on the basis of the seven farmers interviewed in Xocen.[6]
Studies from the 1930s to 1990 report a 1:5 fallow ratio with a median of 0.66 ha/person planted (see Table 4.1). Since 1 km equals 100 ha, dividing 100
by the 0.66 ha required per person gives 152 persons/km2; however, the need for a 5:1 fallow ratio reduces this to a carrying capacity of only 30 persons/km2, or just over five families of 5.6 persons each. Since the recommended fallow period for swidden agriculture is commonly said to be 20–30 years, even only five families per square kilometer would have a long-term negative effect on soil quality. If we use the 20-year fallow figure instead of the 10 years used above, the carrying capac-ity would be only 2.5 families or 14.5 persons/km2. Interviews in Pich, Campeche (Faust, 1998:115–118), reveal that until the 1970s, the clearing of new land in the local area was the usual response to population growth. This led to agricultural plots being located increasingly farther from the dwelling. When the distance be-came too inconvenient, farmers began to shorten the 20-year fallow to 10 and later to 7 years. During that decade, the availability of national lands (officially owned by the government of Mexico) for such uses also decreased substantially, because an agricultural development program began resettling peasant farmers there in col-lective organizations (ejidos) as well as selling plots to commercial ranchers and farmers.[7]
Ethnographies of Chan Kom, Cob´a, Xocen, and Pich make clear that, prior to the 1970s, each of these communities sent groups of sons and daughters to new areas to establish communities. Thus out-migration to establish new plots on avail-able lands, a process called extensification of agriculture (Bilsborrow and Geores, 1992), was the first response to land shortages. It is only more recently that the shortening of fallow periods has become common in response to the lack of avail-able lands in nearby areas (e.g., Chan Kom, Pich, Xocen).[8] The shortening of fallow periods is accompanied by other forms of intensification, especially herbi-cide use rather than intensified hand weeding. Both hand weeding and the ancient Maya use of raised fields and terraces are now thought to require too much effort.
In Sahcab´a there has been little interest in “intensive milpa,” a green manuring sys-tem that involves companion planting of corn with a leguminous species: only three traditional Maya farmers accepted it after three years of intensive effort by a local university to introduce it. Despite the availability of free seeds, chicken manure, and technical advice, men under 50 years of age prefer to migrate to Canc´un or M´erida for wage labor. The reason most commonly given for rejection of the new intensive milpa system is that it is too much work given the unreliability of rain and the low price of corn. Men over 50 report that they would invest their labor in this system if irrigation were available, but they will not invest the extra labor given the vicissitudes of rain. A larger harvest with less work is usually available with traditional milpa, even though it requires more land and the most common fallow period is now 10 years (after 2 years’ use) rather than the preferred 20 (Faust and Dorantes, 1997).
In Xocen, a shortening of fallow was also reported, from the 16–20-year pe-riod practiced by their ancestors to a 6-year pepe-riod, or a ratio of 1:3–4 (Ter´an and Rasmussen, 1994:262). Despite such intensification, seven different group mi-grations founded new “daughter” communities in neighboring areas of Yucat´an and Quintana Roo between 1930 and 1977 (Ter´an and Rasmussen, 1994:104,105).
More recently, people have begun migrating to the tourist zone of Canc´un. While exact fertility is unknown, in Xocen 40% of the population is under the age of 15 (Ter´an and Rasmussen, 1994:101), indicating high fertility. In Pich, more plentiful rain and deeper soils contribute to higher production levels per hectare; neverthe-less, fallow periods have been shortened and people are migrating to cities (Faust, 1998:114).[9]
Farm families have become increasingly reluctant to leave the modern conve-niences available in town to live in distant rancher´ıas during the agricultural season.
Land that is near the village is therefore in sufficient demand that fallow has been shortened to 5–7 years, while more distant areas are unused. Urban migration does not result from a shortage of land, but rather from the fact that urban jobs offer more income and income security than farming, particularly given the lack of irrigation facilities. In Sahcab´a (B. Faust, personal observation), Pich (B. Faust, personal ob-servation), and Xocen (S. Ter´an, 1997, personal communication), people insist that rainfall has been becoming less dependable during the agricultural season. Despite the availability of unused local land, such a rainfall pattern may be contributing to both out-migration and a reluctance to invest the energy and time required to travel all the way to the most distant areas of the ejido lands, where fields have been fal-low longest. The distance in some cases takes two days to walk, less time on a bicycle where there are trails or roads part of the way. Reluctance to use distant fields increases pressures to shorten fallow periods on fields close to the village.