Abstract
Lucio analyzes the production of mezcal with traditional methods in the south of the state of Jalisco, between the Sierra of Manantán and the Volcano of Colima, a region renowned for having high levels of biodiversity and with a history of indigenous communities. His research investigates the multi-functionality of agave in complex agricultural systems and its role in sustaining the reproduction of peasant families. It is centered on a group of families who produce mezcal using traditional technologies in the municipality of Zapotitlán de Vadillo. The case study is contextualized in a global analysis of the production of spirits distilled from agave in Mexico and an explanation of how current and proposed regulatory standards for the marketing of mezcal operate against small-scale producers. Through ethnographic research, Lucio compares traditional agave management practices with the intensive management strategies linked to the industrial production of agave distillates, taking into account the technological aspects that affect the quality of the product and have social and environmental repercussions.
This study has been possible thanks to a post-doctoral fellowship at the Academic Unit in Development Studies of the Autonomous University of Zacatecas in 2014 and 2015. Fieldwork was undertaken during this two-year period in the communities of Tetapán, Loma de Guadalupe , Telcruz, Chancuellar, and San Cristóbal in the municipality of Zapotitlán de Vadillo, consisting of frequent short-term visits to document, through ethnographic methods, the diverse forms of natural resource use by local mezcal producers.
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Notes
- 1.
The Province of Avalos was comprised of the communities of “Acatlan, Apango, Atlaco, Amacueca, Axixic, Atoyac, Amula, Autlan, Cocula, Cuyacapan, Chichiquila, Exatlan, Ixtlahuacan, Mazamitla, Quitupan, San Marcos, San Martín, Shillollan, Santa Cruz, San Juan Cosala, San Cristóbal, San Andrés, San Sebastián, Tuxpan, Tamazula, Tzapotlan, Tzapotitlan, Tepec, Tapalpa. Techalutla, Teotepec, Teocuitatlán, Tizapan, Tzaulan (Sayula), Toluqiulla, Tenamaztlan, Xocotepec, Zacoalco.” (Arévalo 1979: 141).
- 2.
We should be cautious with the use of the term “peasant culture,” because, as José Luis Calva (1988: 236) suggests, “the idea of a specific peasant culture remaining the same for all time turns out to be absurd.” Of greater relevance is the Chayanovian perspective of van der Ploeg, who identifies what he calls the “subsistence ethic,” wherein peasants assume the moral principle of the right to subsistence as the center of the “peasant condition” (van der Ploeg 2010: 49–50).
- 3.
For Ploeg, the peasant condition is understood as the “ongoing struggle for autonomy and progress in a world characterized by often harsh dependency relations and (often high levels of) deprivation,” where autonomy is sought to address both dependency and poverty . In this way, what is “[s]pecific to the peasantry […] is that autonomy and progress are created through the coproduction of man and living nature. Nature – that is, land , animals, plants, water , soil biology and ecological cycles – is used to create and develop a resource base, which is complemented by labour , labour investments (buildings, irrigation works, drainage systems, terraces, etc. – in short: objectified labour ), knowledge, networks , access to markets and so forth. Thus, departing from the peasant condition, a peasant mode of farming can be specified […] with sustainability being an important feature” (van der Ploeg 2010: 37).
- 4.
Draft Official Mexican Standard PROY-NOM-070-SCFI-2015, Official Gazette of the Federation, March 4, 2016.
- 5.
Low oil and gas prices and the collapse of PEMEX generated a fiscal deficit starting in 2015 that has forced the Mexican state not only to modify the Federal Expenditures Budget with the principle of zero-based budgeting, but also to severely cut public spending. As would be expected, the budget cuts have especially affected Branch 16 on environment and natural resources, making the possible channeling of resources to this sector even harder. For example, for the 2017 budget “of the 180 programs and investment projects registered in Branch 16, only 46 have a financial allocation” (Reforma 2016).
- 6.
There are three ways of propagating agave. Sexual reproduction from seed, asexual reproduction via the selection of bulblets that grow on the inflorescence or quiote, technically known as apomixes, and thirdly, a further asexual form which consists of the propagation through hijuelos or offshoots that grow around the mother plant after the second or third year of life. This last form is the most common in agave cultivation. Sexual reproduction is rarely employed because it can have a low rate of germination, or because the plants must remain for more than a year in a nursery before they can be transplanted.
- 7.
Personal communication, August 16, 2016.
- 8.
- 9.
The Agavaceae family has nine genera, the most abundant being the agave genera with approximately 200 species. Its center of origin and domestication is located in Mexico, where they are found in almost all ecosystems, although they are more abundant in semiarid and temperate regions. Of the 200 species of the agave genera, 150 (75%) are distributed across Mexico and of these 104 (69%) are endemic. The states of biological importance for the Agavaceae family are Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Jalisco , Puebla , Queretaro, Oaxaca , and Sonora . There has likely been under-reporting of species in states such as Guerrero , Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosi, which may be overcome “as plant research progresses” (García Mendoza 2004: 161).
- 10.
Draft Official Mexican Standard . PROY-NOM-199-SCFI-2015, Official Gazette of the Federation, February 29, 2016.
- 11.
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Lucio, C. (2018). Traditional Mezcal Production in Zapotitlán de Vadillo. In: Tetreault, D., McCulligh, C., Lucio, C. (eds) Social Environmental Conflicts in Mexico. Environmental Politics and Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73945-8_8
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