Abstract

This paper explores the arrangements between humans, non-humans and more than humans generated by the modernization of agriculture in the ejido of San Miguel Zapotitlán, municipality of Poncitlán, Mexico, since the 1950s. The images reveal an agriculture whose genealogy refers to the science of the green revolution and to the practices and knowledge of peasant origin. They show the sympathies and tensions between the traditional and the modern, the local and the global, autonomy and dependence; the monoculture of corn and wheat and the persistence of polyculture (ecuaro) and agrarian religiosity. In addition, they capture how commercial and self-consumption agriculture require "looking": a peasant way of attentive observation of the environment, a practice that new peasants are trying to learn.

Keywords: agricultural modernization, monoculture, new farmers, polyculture, green revolution

monocropping and the ecuaro: features and lineages of agricultural modernization in san miguel zapotitlán, mexico

This article explores the arrangements between humans, non-humans, and the more-than-human that have resulted from the modernization of agriculture in the ejido of San Miguel Zapotitlán in the town of Poncitlán, Mexico, since the 1950s. The photographs capture a kind of farming with a lineage that combines the green revolution with the practices and knowhow of rural dwellers. Besides pointing to the affinities and tensions between traditional and modern, local and global, and autonomy and dependency, the article shows how monocropping (corn and wheat) coexists with intercropping (ecuaro) and spirituality in agriculture. Additionally, they capture how commercial and subsistence farming require a certain "way of looking": a close observation of the environment by traditional rural dwellers that new farmers are eager to incorporate.

Keywords: agricultural modernization, green revolution, monocropping, intercropping, new farmers.

The aim of this photo essay is to expose some aspects of the contrasting arrangements between humans, non-humans and more than humans.2 generated by the "modernization" of agriculture in San Miguel Zapotitlán, municipality of Poncitlán, Jalisco, since the 1950s. These photographs were captured at various times between 2018 and 2023 and are part of an anthropological investigation into sociotechnical transformations and imaginaries about modernization and progress in Poncitlán.

At first I tried to capture the variety of landscapes, people and techniques in the ejidos of the region. As a result of this exploration, I was able to recreate the details of the cultivation of winter wheat (January-May) and seasonal corn (May-December). Therefore, the images come from my wanderings through the ejido plots where I witnessed the emergence of life and the symbiosis of man and machinery -a distinctive sign of agricultural modernization-, in addition to observing the traces in the landscape of the collapse of old state institutions such as the Compañía Nacional de Subsistencias Populares (conasupo).

I recorded the planting, harvesting and plant care practices of farmers and day laborers. I also witnessed the operation of irrigation systems using water from the Santiago River and the reactions of ejidatarios to drought, situations that in recent years have led to the planting of new monocultures, such as the case of the Agave tequilana Weber blue variety. There is one more reason to create this repertoire of images about agriculture: I seek to honor the memory of the day laborers, ejidatarios and farmers I met during my field work, several of them my relatives, since I am originally from San Miguel Zapotitlán.

After analyzing the images, I noticed that they visualize intimate aspects of an agriculture that sought to modernize since the 1950s and succeeded, but not exactly as intended by agronomist scientists sponsored by the Mexican State and the Rockefeller Foundation, but as an unpredictable web of people, species and machines linked to the global processes of the "green revolution" and to local practices and knowledge of peasant origin.3 A permanent tension that gives rise to contrasting situations in the agriculture of this place, such as the dependence of agriculture on industrial pesticides and fertilizers versus the organizational autonomy of farmers to resolve certain conflicts, as well as the survival of ways of relating to the world that originated in the observation of the environment and that are still fundamental for commercial monoculture.

Here I do not argue that peasant knowledge is totally opposed to scientific knowledge, since they are two sources of the "multiple genealogies" of agricultural practice that are similar in certain points and opposed in others (Gupta, 2000: 159). But there is no sharp distinction between "traditional" and "modern" agriculture, but rather a constant negotiation between the limits of one and the other agricultural practice. For example, one of the central themes of this essay is that traditional peasant "looking" is part of the usual operations of modern wheat and corn plantations, albeit with contemporary modifications.

The weather conditions the corn crop, so farmers are obliged to observe the soil or the reaction of the plants to heat or excess water. That's why I call them "chrono-nauts," because they are experts at anticipating and navigating between disparate weather patterns. Farmers go out to observe the size and direction of the clouds and to perceive the wind to recognize the signs of a storm or the absence of rain. There are also those who make use of documents such as the Yearbook of liturgy, astronomy and meteorology. (Rodríguez Azpeitia, 2014)4 to predict whether the weather will be rainy or dry and, consequently, they anticipate by purchasing hybrid seed suitable for the expected climatic conditions.

In the past, it was customary to observe a complicated system called "cabañuelas", which is based on the fractal correspondence of the days with the months. On the first day of the new year they observed the weather throughout the day to note whether it was rainy, cold, dry, windy, hot, sunny. On the following days they observed the quality of the weather in the same way. Thus they continued for 12 days; each one represented a month of the year (day 1=January, day 2=February, day 3=March..., day 12=December).

Farmers recognize that living things, climate, soil and other elements are interrelated in a totality that can be fractioned by climatic irregularities or the vagaries of the global market for agricultural inputs. This attention to the environment is known locally as "looking at the plots" and most likely stems from the peasant way of life based on harvesting and the practice of polyculture in ecuaros (clearings on hillsides where corn is planted for self-consumption and/or for the local market), which has begun to decline since the middle of the 20th century. xx due to the monoculture of grains for industry.

Peasant looking consists of a way of relating to the environment that reaffirms what Tim Ingold writes about other cultures: "knowledge of the world [...] is acquired by moving it, exploring it, attending to it, always alert to the sign by which it reveals itself" (Ingold, 2000: 55). I tried to learn to "look" during my coexistence with the farmers of San Miguel Zapotitlán and part of that experience is captured in the images of this photographic essay, in which I portray diverse ways of looking of different actors: older adults with ecuaros, experienced farmers, young people who are on their way to practice commercial agriculture, as well as women who select the best seed with their eyes.

For this reason, it is pertinent to ask about the different ways of seeing among the actors. The subtle differences between what one or the other actors see in relation to ecuaro and monoculture are difficult to capture in images and go beyond the scope of this introductory text. Even so, it can be noted that monoculture is a male practice, while women also participated in the cultivation of ecuaro in the past, as part of the peasant kinship unit.

The peasant way of seeing is a knowledge-practice that is still preserved by modern farmers. It is the farmers of the new generations who are beginning to abandon this way of inhabiting and understanding the environment, as they consider other ways of seeing, such as satellite systems and digital representation technologies, to be more valid. However, it is difficult to be categorical with the usual dichotomy between "tradition" and "modernity" because those who still practice "traditional" agriculture use herbicides or chemical fertilizers, and those who practice monoculture are still aware of observing the plants with peasant sensitivity and watching the sky for signs of rain or drought.

Today, some more notable differences between monoculture and ecuaro are beginning to emerge. First, ecuaro is practiced on land in common use by the indigenous community (land tenure that survives even if there is no indigenous identity) and monoculture is practiced on ejidos and private properties. Second, the life linked to the hills and, therefore, the understanding of the peasant way of life with biodiversity in the ecuaros is being lost. Third, the look contrasts with the new and sophisticated digital studies of visual recognition of the crops (Farhood et al., 2022), which are already being implemented in agriculture in San Miguel Zapotitlán. In addition, the look differs from the so-called "demonstrations", in which agronomists, paid by agricultural input companies, try to persuade farmers through visual displays of marketing to consume certain products considered innovative.

Other aspects that also find their register in this photographic essay refer to religiosity, a vital aspect for farmers that did not disappear with modernization. Believers recognize the intervention of the more-than-human domain in the weather. When the rainy season begins in May or June, masses are held for a good storm or petitions for abundant rain to the saints related to the weather - St. Peter, St. John and St. Isidore the Farmer. In the religious festival season, June and September, tractors take part in processions and parades that are unrecognizable without the visuals of agribusiness brands (such as the Guilds entry).

In short, to record the traces of this process of agricultural modernization that generates more ecological complications, ethnographic photography excels in its ability to depict past and present ways of life that "haunt" agrarian landscapes (Gan et al., 2017: 2). Next, I present a brief picture of the agricultural evolution of the region that allows a better understanding of the new spatiotemporal arrangements between humans and non-humans generated by modernization, whose antecedents date back to the end of the 20th century, and the new spatial-temporal arrangements between humans and non-humans generated by modernization. xviii.

Brief history of agriculture in Poncitlán

Poncitlán is located within the region known as Ciénega de Jalisco. The municipal area is bordered to the west by the industrial zone of Guadalajara, to the north by Los Altos de Jalisco, to the east by La Barca and to the south by the shore of Lake Chapala. Its landscapes range from the highlands, where harvesting and polyculture are still practiced, to the plains of the Santiago River valley, where most of the cash crops are grown.

In part, agricultural modernization, with its claim to standardization of efficient production practices, can be understood as a quest to simplify the complexity of existing landscapes. In this respect, monoculture and colonially derived plantations are similar, as both generate a "conjunction between ecological simplifications" that discipline humans and non-humans to produce food and fiber (Tsing and Haraway, 2019: 6). However, what the photographs in this essay exhibit is that the intended ecological simplification produces other complicated interspecies arrangements, sometimes detrimental to farmers, but indicative of the adaptive capacity of humans, plants, and animals. For example, plants such as the teocintle, the ancestor of today's corn, survive among the hybrid corn plots, and other "weeds" grow, scattered by agricultural machinery, such as the so-called "avenilla" (maybe Themeda quadrivalvis).

These ecological reconfigurations are integral to the dynamics of the region since 1540 when Nuño de Guzmán's troops subdued the native population. The conquest began the importation of species from the Old Continent and their adaptation to the soils and climates of Jalisco. At the beginning, the experimentation with new species was carried out by the Franciscan friars in the convents and Indian hospitals, but later the breeding of trees and vegetables was extended to other areas by the locals. Before the region became a cereal growing center, from the xvi and until the end of xviiiseasonal cattle fattening was the main activity (Calvo, 1989: 22). The massive "irruption" of "ungulates" would transform the balance between animals and plants and between livestock and human communities dependent on agriculture (Skopyk and Melville, 2018).

Then, the history of ecological simplification in Poncitlán is the history of cereal specialization that originated in the demand for wheat in the city of Guadalajara due to the demographic growth of the city in the 20th century. xviii (Van Young 2018, 1990). As some historians point out, "[...] Wheat tended to displace maize on more favored cropland, and maize in turn probably displaced pastoralism to more peripheral and marginal quality areas" (Van Young, 1990: 174-176).

The cereal economy of the Guadalajara region gave rise to the first modernization of the haciendas in the 20th century. xix. As recorded in the archives,5 by the end of xix and early xx The haciendas, as well as small and wealthy landowners, acquired land along the Santiago River, limiting access for cattle and fishing to other agrarian actors; as a result, the milpa was relegated to lands in the highlands considered marginal.

At the beginning of the xxthe communities of Poncitlán asked the State for the restitution or endowment of territories that they allegedly lost to the haciendas in the 20th century. xix. Since then, some ejidos on the banks of the Santiago River have enjoyed water rights for irrigation, as is the case of San Miguel Zapotitlán.6 In these ejidos it is possible to plant rainfed corn and wheat with irrigation water.

Agricultural simplification, however, generated different complexities than in the 20th century. xix. In 1943, in the context of World War II, then Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho and the Rockefeller Foundation implemented the Mexican Agricultural Plan to "raise the standard of living in rural Mexico by improving the productivity of staple food crops" (Olsson, 2017: 99). In the early years of research on Mexican agriculture, agricultural scientists debated whether the country's development, "should favor basic monoculture or diversification?" (Olsson, 2017: 128). For political reasons, the choice was made to promote monoculture. From the post-revolutionary state institutions, hybrid seeds that were not useful for replanting the following year were promoted, creating a favorable situation to generate patron-client relationships with Mexican growers (Olsson, 2017: 149).

The modernizing plans of the so-called "green revolution" -based on faith in technology for the progress of the countryside- had diverse effects on Poncitlán's agriculture after 1950. The most evident transformation in the ejido of San Miguel Zapotitlán was the gradual substitution of the polyculture called ecuaro (corn, beans and squash) for monoculture (garbanza, wheat and sorghum) through the introduction and readaptation of new techniques, hybrid seeds, tractors, mechanical harvesters, trucks to transport crops, fertilizers, agrochemicals and bank credits.

Based on this trend towards rationalization in the early years of the century xxi contract farming emerged. Ejidatarios became grain producers by organizing themselves in response to the agro-industrial model promoted after the reform of Article 27 of the Constitution, which culminated the land distribution begun in 1915 with the agrarian reform. Today's farmers describe this modernization as follows: "First we were peasants, then ejidatarios and now we are grain producers" ("Diario de campo", December 12, 2018).

In fact, a dozen ejidatarios negotiated a direct deal with the industrialists in the face of the decline of the conasupoThe company bought cereals to avoid the abuses of middlemen called "coyotes". At the beginning of the century xxiIn addition, the farmers organized in the Action Group grew grain for the market. They also forged ties with global hybrid seed companies, such as Pioneer, through agricultural engineers, the private substitutes for mid-century extension workers. xx. Grupo Acción disappeared in a few years, but laid the foundations for the creation of the company Integradora Arca. sapi of c.v.whose operation is similar to conasupo.

In March 2024, Integradora Arca proposed a "digital agriculture" project from an agroecology approach, which relies on sophisticated data processing and geostatistical techniques to visualize different parameters of agricultural soils in order to improve them. With technical and institutional improvements, and also thanks to some government support over the course of the last century, Arca has been able to develop a new project, "digital agriculture", based on an agroecology approach. xxIn the 1980s, ejidal corn production increased from two to eight tons per hectare between 1940 and 1980. From 2000 onwards, exceptional yields of up to twelve tons per hectare were recorded ("Diario de campo", June 2, 2018).

The class of smallholder ejidatarios formed over the course of the 20th century xx is disappearing for various reasons, including the high price of agricultural inputs due to the cancellation of government subsidies. The production of corn-commodity for the industry led to a decrease in the area destined for self-supply, following the general trend in Mexico of putting pressure on the increasingly reduced smallholding to supply corn-food to people (Gutiérrez Núñez, 2017: 107).

Despite the above, on hillsides some farmers preserve an ancestral agricultural practice: the ecuaros. A farmer defines the ecuaro as "a little piece of land to plant vegetables or corn, like saying, nomás pa los elotes" ("Diario de campo", March 6, 2019). These systems contain a great biodiversity, "a high number of perennial and annual plants, wild and domesticated" (Moreno-Calles et al., 2016: 5). In addition, polycultures solicit the peasants' eyes to determine the most fertile types of soil, the ripeness of the fruits, and the signs on the hill of drought and in the clouds the indicators of a storm.

Maize production in the ecuaros supplies a few farmers and is the basis for dishes that are frequently consumed in the locality, such as pozole. In recent years, a handful of "new farmers" (Chevalier, 1993) are trying to learn from the old farmers how to cultivate the ecuaros, which may prove positive for the conservation of native maize. In the end, in this photographic essay I argue the existence of an inseparable genealogy between commercial agriculture and peasant knowledge, whose scenario is a nature with invisible and evident links with industry and the city.

Files consulted

Archivo Histórico del Agua (aha)

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Rubén Cruz Díaz Ramírez D. in Social Anthropology from the Universidad Iberoamericana. She is currently doing postdoctoral research at the uam Iztapalapa. In his academic career he has been dedicated to historical and ethnographic research on various aspects of socio-technical transformations, as well as the imaginaries of progress, modernization and development in various localities of the municipality of Poncitlán, Jalisco. His current work deals with the anthropology and techno-environmental history of Poncitlán, with emphasis on San Miguel Zapotitlán.