A maize landscape: Ethnicity and agro-biodiversity in Chiapas Mexico
S.B. Brush
a,
*
, Hugo R. Perales
b
a
Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, United States
b
Departamento de Agroecologı
´
a, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Carretera Panamericana y Perife
´
rico Sur s/n,
San Cristo
´
bal, Chiapas, Me
´
xico 29290, Mexico
Available online 31 January 2007
Abstract
The ecology of maize (Zea mays L.) in Mexico, its center of domestication and diversity, has been researched for several decades. While
the broad outlines of diversity and dynamics of native maize populations are known at the farm and national levels, these topics are less well
known at the landscape level. Although environmental factors are the principal forces behind the overall diversity of the species in Mexico,
recent research suggests that social origin, for instance community of residence or ethno-linguistic group, influences maize population
structure at more local levels. A landscape perspective can help to determine whether these social factors operate in a consistent fashion across
different environments. Case study data from Chiapas are presented and used to illustrate the role of ethnicity in understanding the ecology of
maize diversity in Mexico. The paper contrasts the maize populations and management practices of Spanish speaking mestizos and Mayan
language speaking indigenous people across four altitude zones in Chiapas. Environmental differences are primary in determining the overall
pattern of maize diversity across the Chiapan landscape, but social origin has a significant effect on maize populations in all environments.
# 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Crop diversity; Agriculture; Indigenous people; Mestizos
1. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of
social origin on patterns of maize (Zea mays L.) diversity at a
landscape level between the extremes of the national and
community levels. Among other aspects, analysis of
Mexican maize diversity at the national and community
levels has focused on the overall structure of the species
(e.g., Sa
´
nchez et al., 2000), the distribution of diversity
across different environments (Perales et al., 2003a), and
competition between landraces and modern varieties (Bellon
and Brush, 1994). Early research (e.g., Anderson, 1947)
established that maize diversity is not randomly distributed
but rather is a function of environmental factors. Systematic
collection and analysis has confirmed that ecology,
determined by altitude and geographic location, explains
the distribution of the 59 races of maize in Mexico (Sa
´
nchez
and Goodman, 1992). In this, Mexican maize follows a
familiar pattern to the biogeography of other organisms
(Rosenzweig, 1995) and crops (Frankel et al., 1995)in
which spatial distribution across bio-physical environments
accounts for diversity. Although Mexico has undergone
modernization in many regards, its maize crop is primarily
sown with local seed. The use of improved varieties from
public and commercial breeding is confined to a relatively
small percentage of Mexican maize area, primarily in the
intensive cropping systems below 1200 m above sea level (m
a.s.l.) (Aquino et al., 2001).
Research on the diversity and dynamics of Mexican
maize has focused primarily at two levels at different spatial
extremes. The overall diversity of the species has been
studied from national collections and material from
relatively few farmers obtained without social context
(Wellhausen et al., 1952). At the other extreme, the selection
and maintenance of maize has been examined at the local or
micro-regional level and reliant on relatively intensive
collecting and surveying of farm households (e.g., Bellon
and Brush, 1994; Perales et al., 2003a). One important study
that is focused between the national and local levels is
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Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 121 (2007) 211–221
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 530 752 4368; fax: +1 530 752 5660.
E-mail address: sbbrush@ucdavis.edu (S.B. Brush).
0167-8809/$ – see front matter # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.agee.2006.12.018