Modernizing Maya agriculture: A case study of peasant entrepreneurship in northern Yucatan

Mexican agriculture, like the Mexican economy as a whole, is facing severe problems. Academic debate in Mexico, growing out of the situation in the countryside, generally provides little hope that agricultural development can in fact improve the lot of the majority of the country's rural population which ekes out a living through peasant farming; instead, the increasing impoverishment of the peasantry or wage labour are presented as the way of the future. The thesis suggests that peasant "embourgeoisement" via petty entrepreneurship has generally been overlooked as a practicable option in Mexican rural development thinking.;The case study focuses on the community of Dzidzantun, situated in the henequen zone, which has become the market gardening centre of northern Yucatan. The study traces the history of this community from the pre-Columbian era up to the present, with special attention given to the rise and fall of henequen and the emergence of peasant entrepreneurship. The decision-making process adopted in vegetable production at the present time is examined in order to highlight what is involved in adapting traditional Maya agriculture to the market and for understanding the role of risk and uncertainty in production management.;Finally the issue of the compatibility of peasant entrepreneurship and rural development is raised in the context of the theoretical debate about the future of the peasantry. Based on the study, it is shown that, depending on labour/land ratios, the ejido form of landholding coupled with appropriate technology can provide the means for raising the general standard of living through employment creation. Nevertheless, it is recognized that while risk has been an important factor in helping to limit class polarization in this instance, it is likely to restrict the emergence of peasant entrepreneurship in other communities of the henequen zone.;In Yucatan peasant entrepreneurship has played a dynamic role in the agricultural sector and Maya techniques are the basis of this dynamism. Maya agricultural expertise, developed over several thousand years, is an adaptation to Yucatan's particular geography. Faced with stagnating maize yields, and severe underemployment associated with declining henequen production in northwestern Yucatan, some Maya producers have successfully adapted traditional agricultural techniques to market gardening.