In our work on changes in peasant farming, we use the productive matrix as a tangible proxy indicator for broader socio-cultural changes that are difficult to grasp spatially, let alone quantitatively.
What people cultivate, where, and how, give important indications about the underlying local economy, food systems and land management. For example, traditional food staples are often replaced by cash crop systems, which contribute to increase local incomes, but generate important dependencies (i.e. towards intermediaries, chemical inputs, commercial seeds, market prices). These changes have important implications in terms of local food production and consumption, health and sources of employment.
Mapping in land use sciences is generally associated with the geographically correct representation of a phenomenon. This, more often than not, relies on top-down quantitative approaches based on remote sensing, geographical information systems (GIS) and access to large, state of the art datasets. These requirements, nevertheless, contribute to mask a wide range of transformations.
For example, where peasant farmers and indigenous communities are characterised by scarce access to land scarcity, changes in local productive matrix operate at micro-scale, and is neither monitored nor quantified. These changes are consequently often overlooked in regional to global Land Use / Land Cover analyses, although they have profound implications for local populations and their environment.
Further, while a number of approaches exist to invite local populations to create maps of their land use and resources (e.g. in Rapid Rural Appraisial Approaches), we still lack tested methods to relate GIS-based maps and resource maps, with other no less revealing maps: maps produced by local populations to visualize local impact of specific stressors (e.g. extractive projects, agroindustrial monocultures). The Latin American feminist mapping approach based on the “Cuerpo – Territorio” (Body – Territory) frameworks, invites us to intertwine different types of perceptions, knowledges, discourses and priorities to make visible not only specific changes in land use but also their profound impacts on local bodies, communities and territories.
Key challenges here are:
- to cross-fertilise top-down, quantitative mapping with bottom-up qualitative approaches
- to acknowledge that apparently “objective”, “scientific” maps are as much a construction of reality as are apparently “subjective”, “emotional” maps
- to recognise the underlying political, cultural and ideological motivations of constructing such maps.
Collaborators
Daniel Sandoval, Iliusi Vega del Valle and Jacqueline M. Calzada-Mendoza
Together we created an observatory of agroindustrial crops in Mexico. OBSAM (Observatorio agroindustrial en México). By consulting our website http://obsam-mx.org/ you can visualise our maps of oil palm plantations in Mexico.
Citations in the following media:
la-lista.com
avispa.org
jornadaveracruz.com.mx
Publications
de la Vega-Leinert AC, Sandoval, D, Vega del Valle ID. (2023). Mapeo de la expansión de la palma aceitera (Elais guineensis Jacq.) en México – Mapping the expansion of oil palm (Elais guineensis Jacq.) in Mexico — Methodology and developments. Agrociencia.
de la Vega-Leinert AC, Sandoval, D, Vega del Valle ID, Calzada-Mendoza JM, Clausing P. (2021). Cultivo de palma de aceite en México – Balance de la situación actual y análisis espacial. Ciudad de México: Universidad de Greifswald, CECCAM, México vía Berlin e.V., 2021. http://mexicoviaberlin.org/4772-2/
Clausing, P., de la Vega-Leinert AC (2021) Konflikte sind absehbar – Mexikos Ölpalmenplantagen wurden kartiert. Ila (Informationsstelle Lateinamerika e.V. ) 447 (Juli / August): 442-3
GIS Maps
Sandoval Vázquez SD, de la Vega-Leinert AC, Vega de Valle ID. 2022. Muestreo sistemático de áreas con cultivos de palma aceitera en México (1.1). DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7300073. https://zenodo.org/record/7616596
Sandoval Vázquez SD, de la Vega-Leinert AC, Vega de Valle ID. 2021. Muestreo sistemático de áreas con cultivos de palma aceitera en México (1). doi: 0.5281/zenodo.7300074
Events / Presentations
de la Vega-Leinert AC (2024, April). Oil Palm on peasant land – Local productive alternative or socio-ecological dead end? A case study from South Mexico. University College Dublin School of Geography Seminar Series, Dublin, Ireland.
de la Vega-Leinert AC, Sandoval Vázquez D. (2022, october). Mapeando el avance del cultivo de la palma de aceite en México y sus impactos socio-ambientales. Conversatorio “Impactos socioambientales del cultivo de la palma de aceite: análisis, retos y alternativas” (Webinar). Comisión Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas, Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, Gobierno de México.
de la Vega-Leinert AC, Castellanos Navarrete A (2022, octuber). El cultivo de la palma de aceite en tierras ejidales del Norte de Chiapas: ¿alternativa productiva o callejón sin salida? Seminario Interinstitucional Ecología Política y Estudios Socioambientales, IIS-UNAM, CRIM-UNAM, Facultad de Ciencias, UNAM, IIES-UNAM, México.
de la Vega-Leinert AC, Ramos Guillén C, Schenerock A, González C, Sandoval D, García Aguirre MA, Vega del Valle ID, Calzada Mendoza JM (2022). Tejiendo mapas de resistencia a la palma de aceite en México. 40th International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) – Polarización socioambiental y rivalidad entre grandes potencias, Virtual Congress. May 3rd – 8th 2022
de la Vega-Leinert AC, Sandoval Vázquez D (2022, March). Problemática de la palma aceitera con relación a la conservación ambiental. Presentación de investigación Palma aceitera/Avispa Midia. Plataforma FB Avispa Midia: México. 9 de Marzo 2022.
Online event (2021). Cultivo de palma de aceite en México. Un estudio integral de las problemáticas asociadas a este cultuvo en territorio mexicano. Universidad Greifswald, Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano, Agua y Vida, Mujeres, Derechos a Ambiente A.C., México vía Berlin. 15th June 2021.
de la Vega-Leinert, AC (2019). Peasant productive systems at a crossroad: Oil palm plantations vs. diversified agroforestry in North Chiapas, Mexico. Deutscher Kongress für Geographie, 25.–30. September 2019, Kiel
Citations in the following media
Navarro F., S y Santiago, A. (2022) El dilema de «La Encrucijada»: El lavado verde de la palma aceitera. Avispa Midia y CONNECTAS. https://avispa.org/el-lavado-verde-de-la-palma-aceitera/
Sánchez, A. (2022). Palma de aceite: las plantaciones que acorralan selvas y manglares en el sureste de México. https://la-lista.com/sembrar-deforestacion-en-mexico/palma
La Jornada Veracruz (2002). Crece en México producción de palma de aceite, pero daña suelos y a la población. https://jornadaveracruz.com.mx/estado/crece-en-mexico-produccion-de-palma-de-aceite-pero-dana-suelos-y-a-la-poblacion/