The Interaction Between Mayan Honey Producers and the Global Agri-Food Regime
This chapter aims to describe and analyze the agricultural activities in Mayan communities of the center of Quintana Roo, Mexico, and the relation between a network of Mayan agricultural practices with the agri-food regime. This analysis presents Mayan co
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The Interaction Between Mayan Honey Producers and the Global Agri-Food Regime Lilia Betania Vázquez González
Abstract This chapter aims to describe and analyze the agricultural activities in Mayan communities of the center of Quintana Roo, Mexico, and the relation between a network of Mayan agricultural practices with the agri-food regime. This analysis presents Mayan communities as a niche that interacts with the regime as a particular and unique model. The methodology included a mixed methods approach of qualitative nature, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, and discourse analysis, based on grounded theory. The interaction between the regime and the Mayan communities is observed in three aspects: (1) In the activities of honey production, (2) In the activities of traditional agriculture, and (3) In the forms of social organization of the communities. The traditional agricultural systems in the communities coexist and interact with the regime, which is the dominant actor. In the activities of honey production, the agri-food regime imposes strict rules about the know-how of production and “transfers” technological packages and technical knowledge to the Mayan peasants, thereby displacing traditional practices and knowledge, for example, with respect to breeding native bees. Both in agricultural activities and social organizations, the regime does not dominate the communities because peasants maintain cultivation of the milpa (i.e., the slash-and-burn cultivation) and because community social organizations have a high degree of consolidation. Keywords Agri-food regime · Slash-and-burn cultivation · Beekeeping · Mayan peasants · Traditional social organization
L. B. Vázquez González (*) TecMilenio University, Merida Campus, Mérida, Mexico © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. Arce Ibarra et al. (eds.), Socio-Environmental Regimes and Local Visions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49767-5_7
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7.1 Introduction Key moments in the history of food production are read by academics as agri-food regimes where power relations maintain control of food production among nations. Between the 1950s and 1970s, a regime characterized by agro-industrialization, the use of green revolution technologies and production chains as the model of development were the guide of dominant nations and would have to transfer it to less developed countries (McMichael, 2009). The current regime that initiated at the end of the 1980s is the neoliberal regime whose purpose is to facilitate the free market. This regime uses the transfer of state power to the world trade organizations regarding the decision-making on how to produce food (Pechlaner & Otero, 2008). In Mexico, the end of trade barriers with the United States and Canada as a result of the Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 and the consequent entry of imported food products, meant changes in the way of life for Mexican farmers. Although there are open demonstrations against the neoliberal1 regime such as the Zapatista National Liberat
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