The crisis of the milpa system: cultural and biological erosion in San Juan de las Nieves, Malinaltepec, Guerrero, Mexico

The crisis of the milpero system (farming of traditional mixed-crop plots that are left fallow at intervals to recover fertility) in SJN arises from national policies that are intended to modernize rural Mexico, thereby transitioning from peasant to industrial agriculture. The former, which is based upon a body of knowledge acquired through generations of rural families’ hands-on experience, is the basis for a radical move toward reducing or eliminating dependence upon inputs from the capitalists world’s agro-industries. In the modern world, rural peasants are confronted with a combination of cultural erosion and homogenization resulting from uncontrolled globalization, which attempts to impose uniformity at the expense of diversity. The methods that we used to study the crisis in SJN included sampling, semi-structured dialogs, participant observation, and construction of diagrams. In this article, we present results showing changes that occurred in SJN from 1980 to 2013. In 1980, the people there used the corn plant and its grains in 17 different ways, as opposed to only 9 ways in 2013. Thirty years later, production of corn, beans, and squash had increased, but fewer types of crops were being planted. Use of herbicides began in 2000, causing a reduction in species biodiversity in the milpas, changing the types of food available to families, and eroding the social fabric. As of 2013, SJN’s agricultural plots contain 30 types of plants from 29 genera, 23 species, and 22 families. The plants are used for medicine, food, forage, and various domestic purposes; some are weeds. In 1980 there were 20 species of fauna, but only 14 in 2013. Nine species of edaphic fauna are present, of which the most abundant is the gallina ciega of the genus Phyllophaga. SJN’s agricultural plots were found to contain 12 species.