Agriculture, forestry, and fishing-Mexico

Agriculture, forestry, and fishing-Mexico

AGRICULTURE

Much of the country is too arid or too mountainous for crops or grazing, and it is estimated that no more than one-fifth of the land is potentially arable. Moreover, Mexico’s rapidly growing population has made the country a net importer of grains. In the early 21st century agriculture accounted for a small and diminishing part of GDP, but, while the rural workforce was significant, it too was shrinking rapidly. Chief crops include corn (maize), sugarcane, sorghum, wheat, tomatoes, bananas, chilies, green peppers, oranges, lemons and limes, mangoes, and other tropical fruits, along with beans, barley, avocados, blue agave, and coffee. Traditional farming methods still prevail in many regions, especially in those with predominantly indigenous populations, such as the Southern Highlands. In these areas, intensive subsistence agriculture based on corn, beans, and squash—the fundamental trinity of Mesoamerican agriculture—is practiced on small plots of land, often part of communal village holdings. The system is highly labour-intensive and has low per capita productivity, which limits the opportunities for economic advancement. Normally, between one-tenth and one-eighth of the country’s total area is planted to crops annually.

While not its major objective, one of the legacies of the revolution of 1910 was land reform, which produced the ejido system of communal holdings. At the time of the revolution, the rural peasantry was virtually landless and worked under a debt peonage system on haciendas (large estates). The constitution of 1917 contained a statute limiting the amount of land that a person could own and, through the concept of social utility, legalized the federal government’s expropriation and redistribution of land. Initially, small parcels were granted to communal groups whose members worked holdings individually (usually cropland) or in common (usually pasture or woodland). By the end of the 1930s, haciendas had all but disappeared from the Mesa Central, Balsas Depression, and Southern Highlands. Land redistribution produced numerous small holdings 10–20 acres (4–8 hectares) in size as well as cooperative ejidos, most of which have since been privatized. Many peasants still eke out a living through subsistence agriculture and earn small amounts of cash by sending part of their harvest to the towns and cities of central and southern Mexico.

Commercial agricultural products come from three major regions of the country—the tropical regions of the Gulf Coast and Chiapas Highlands, the irrigated lands of the North and Northwest, and the Bajío in the Mesa Central. Tropical crops have been grown on the Gulf Coastal Plain and its adjacent highlands since the early colonial period. Production now extends southeastward from near Tampico to the Chiapas Highlands and inland to the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental. There coffee and sugarcane are the most important crops in value and acreage. Aside from illicit drugs, coffee is Mexico’s most valuable export crop. Sugarcane is now produced largely for the domestic market, as are bananas, pineapples, papayas, mangoes, cacao, and rice. Mexico is one of the world’s leading producers of vanilla, which is also grown in these areas. Smaller areas of cacao, coffee, and sugarcane are found in Chiapas. Cotton has become a major crop along the Pacific Coastal (Soconusco) Plain of Chiapas, near the Guatemalan border.

Nearly one-fifth of Mexican cropland under production is irrigated, which has brought large-scale commercial production to the North and Northwest. Cotton has become the major crop in the areas developed by irrigation projects since the 1930s. The Laguna Project near Torreón was the country’s first attempt at providing water to the arid North, and huge cooperative ejidos were formed to farm cotton using modern mechanized methods. This was followed by the Las Delicias Project near Chihuahua, which also featured cotton but later brought substantial acreages of wheat into production. Wheat, especially north of Sinaloa, is the most important crop in the Northwest, which is now the country’s centre of grain production. Cotton, vegetables, and oilseeds are also important there. Melons and winter vegetables such as tomatoes and lettuce are grown for markets in the United States and have become increasingly important because of NAFTA and the elimination of tariffs. Cotton is the major crop of the Mexicali Valley. The Northwest also has the dubious distinction of being the leading staging area for drug smuggling. Marijuana and opium poppies are produced in relatively isolated areas there, notably in Sinaloa.

Within the Mesa Central, the Bajío traditionally has been considered the breadbasket of Mexico. Wheat, corn, vegetables, peanuts (groundnuts), strawberries, and beans are produced on smallholdings. While still a major producing region with the advantage of proximity to major urban markets, the Bajío has been eclipsed in agricultural preeminence by the Northwest.

Livestock ranching has been concentrated in the North since Mexico gained independence. Open-range cattle operations, frequently exceeding 385 square miles (1,000 square km) in size, were created in the 1800s, and a number of large holdings persisted despite agrarian reform. Because of the arid conditions and limited natural vegetation, the region’s carrying capacity for grazing animals is low. Many of the criollo cattle of the North, descendants of stock introduced from Spain in the 1500s, have been replaced by Herefords, Brahman, and other breeds, while open-range methods are giving way to rotational grazing systems. Some natural pastures have been improved by means of irrigation, top-seeding, and fertilization. Supplemental feeding of stock has also become more common.

Cattle are also raised commercially for the domestic market in tropical areas, mainly in the Northeast, Gulf Coast, and Southern Highlands regions. In these areas Brahman, or Zebu, cattle are favoured because of their tolerance of heat and high humidity. Luxuriant vegetation and ample moisture make the animal-carrying capacity of the land much higher than in the North. Large tracts of rainforest have been cleared and planted with imported African grasses to facilitate grazing.

Mexico produces two specialized crops that are rarely grown elsewhere. Henequen, a member of the genus Agave, yields a fibre used in furniture manufacturing and cordage. The plant was introduced in the 1880s to the northern Yucatán, which for many years was the sole commercial source of henequen. Land reforms in the mid-1930s replaced extensive henequen plantations with cooperatives and small farms, which still produce this important export crop.

Maguey, also of the genus Agave, is planted in many parts of the Mesa Central. Originally used in making pulque, an inexpensive alcoholic beverage, maguey was cultivated by many small farmers because it could thrive on infertile, rocky soils. Tequila, Mexico’s national liquor, is also derived from agave plants, including at least 51 percent from blue agave. The drink takes its name from the town of Tequila in the state of Jalisco, the centre for its production and distilling. Yet another alcoholic drink derived from an agave is mescal, which is produced primarily in Oaxaca.

FORESTRY

Mexico’s largest forests are in the tropical east and south. It is estimated that nearly two-thirds of the country was covered by forests in the mid-1500s, but indiscriminate exploitation has decimated this resource. Though conservation is practiced in some of the pine forests in the northern Sierra Madre Occidental, logging has heavily damaged some areas, and farmers in the Gulf Coast region and elsewhere continue to reduce rainforests with slash-and-burn methods and expanding pastures. The tropical forests of the south and east yield a wide variety of valuable products, including hardwoods, such as oaks and mahogany, and an assortment of fragrant woods, such as cedar and rosewood. In addition, the rainforests of Chiapas and the southern Yucatán contain sapodilla trees, which are the source for chicle, the latex traditionally used to make chewing gum (though most commercial varieties of gum are now manufactured with synthetic latex). Softwoods are found in the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Sierra Madre Occidental above 6,000 feet (1,800 metres). Stands of ponderosa, lodgepole, and other pines are especially well developed in the Sierra Madre Occidental, especially in the states of Chihuahua and Durango.

FISHING

Mexico has a bountiful supply of marine resources, but fish and seafood are not a major part of the national diet. Two shrimping areas of the Gulf Coast, from Tampico north to the U.S. border and from Veracruz south to Campeche, have been fished commercially since the 1940s. The Gulf of California shrimping grounds, first exploited on a large scale in the late 1950s, are now the most important in the country. The Gulf of California is also known for its game fish, such as black marlin and other billfish. Deepwater fish abound off the Pacific coast of Baja California. Since the formation of a commercial fishing fleet in the 1960s, this area has become the country’s main fishing ground, producing most of the total commercial catch. Sardines, anchovies, and tuna are the leading species taken. In the nearshore zone of the Pacific coast of Baja California, lobster and abalone are captured in commercial quantities. The rest of the commercial marine catch comes from the Gulf of Mexico, especially off the Campeche Bank north of the Yucatán Peninsula.