IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v7y2018i3p80-d154519.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Uneven Influence of Climate Trends and Agricultural Policies on Maize Production in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Sofia Mardero

    (Department of Biodiversity Conservation, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur ECOSUR, Chetumal 77014, Mexico)

  • Birgit Schmook

    (Department of Biodiversity Conservation, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur ECOSUR, Chetumal 77014, Mexico)

  • Jorge Omar López-Martínez

    (CONACYT—El Colegio de la Frontera Sur ECOSUR, Chetumal 77014, Mexico)

  • Lizette Cicero

    (Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias INIFAP, Mérida 97130, Mexico)

  • Claudia Radel

    (Department of Environment and Society, Quinney College of Natural Resources, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USA)

  • Zachary Christman

    (Department of Geography, Planning, and Sustainability, School of Earth and Environment, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ 08028, USA)

Abstract

Maize is an important staple crop in Mexico, and the recent intensification of climate variability, in combination with non-climatic forces, has hindered increases in production, especially for smallholder farmers. This article demonstrates the influence of these drivers on maize production trends in the three states of the Yucatan Peninsula using a mixed methods approach of climatic analysis and semi-structured interviews. Climate trend analysis and generalized additive models (GAMs) demonstrate relationships between production and climatic variability, using 1980-2010 precipitation and temperature data. Data from forty interviews with government officials and representatives of farmers' associations (gathered in 2015 and 2016) highlight the influence of agricultural policy on maize production in the region. The climate trend analysis yielded mixed results, with a statistically significant negative rainfall trend for Quintana Roo and variability in maximum temperature changes across the region, with an increase in Yucatan State and Quintana Roo and a decrease in Campeche. Climate and production GAMs indicate a strong significant relationship between production and climate fluctuations for Campeche (79%) and Quintana Roo (72%) and a weaker significant relationship for the Yucatan State (31%). Informants identified precipitation variability and ineffective public policies for smallholder agricultural development as primary obstacles for maize production, including inadequate design of agricultural programs, inconsistent agricultural support, and ineffective farmers' organizations. Quantifying the influence of climate change on maize production, and the amplifying influence of national and regional agricultural policy for smallholder farmers, will inform more appropriate policy design and implementation.

Suggested Citation

  • Sofia Mardero & Birgit Schmook & Jorge Omar López-Martínez & Lizette Cicero & Claudia Radel & Zachary Christman, 2018. "The Uneven Influence of Climate Trends and Agricultural Policies on Maize Production in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico," Land, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-20, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:7:y:2018:i:3:p:80-:d:154519
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/7/3/80/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/7/3/80/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eakin, Hallie, 2005. "Institutional change, climate risk, and rural vulnerability: Cases from Central Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 1923-1938, November.
    2. Naude, Antonio Yunez, 2006. "Liberalizacion y reformas al agro: lecciones de Mexico," Economia Agraria y Recursos Naturales, Spanish Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 6(12), pages 1-21.
    3. W. Adger & P. Kelly, 1999. "Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and the Architecture of Entitlements," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 253-266, September.
    4. Barry Smit & Ian Burton & Richard Klein & J. Wandel, 2000. "An Anatomy of Adaptation to Climate Change and Variability," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 223-251, April.
    5. Hallie Eakin & Hugo Perales & Kirsten Appendini & Stuart Sweeney, 2014. "Selling Maize in Mexico: The Persistence of Peasant Farming in an Era of Global Markets," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(1), pages 133-155, January.
    6. William R. Sutton & Rachel I. Block & Jitendra Srivastava, 2009. "Adaptation to Climate Change in Europe and Central Asia Agriculture," World Bank Publications - Reports 25983, The World Bank Group.
    7. Jacqueline M. Vadjunec & Claudia Radel & B. L. Turner II, 2016. "Introduction: The Continued Importance of Smallholders Today," Land, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-12, October.
    8. Christopher Bryant & Barry Smit & Michael Brklacich & Thomas Johnston & John Smithers & Quentin Chjotti & Bhawan Singh, 2000. "Adaptation in Canadian Agriculture to Climatic Variability and Change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 181-201, April.
    9. Appendini, Kirsten & Liverman, Diana, 1994. "Agricultural policy, climate change and food security in Mexico," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 149-164, April.
    10. Samaniego, Joseluis & De Miguel, Carlos J. & Galindo, Luis Miguel & Gómez, José Javier & Martínez, Karina & Cetrángolo, Oscar, 2009. "La economía del cambio climático en Chile: síntesis," Sede de la CEPAL en Santiago (Estudios e Investigaciones) 32827, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    11. Robin Leichenko & Karen O'Brien, 2002. "The Dynamics of Rural Vulnerability to Global Change: The Case of southern Africa," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-18, March.
    12. Freebairn, Donald K., 1995. "Did the Green Revolution Concentrate Incomes? A Quantitative Study of Research Reports," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 265-279, February.
    13. Neil Adger, W., 1999. "Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in Coastal Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 249-269, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhen Shi & Huinan Huang & Yingju Wu & Yung-Ho Chiu & Shijiong Qin, 2020. "Climate Change Impacts on Agricultural Production and Crop Disaster Area in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-23, July.
    2. Matthew C. LaFevor & Alexandra G. Ponette-González & Rebecca Larson & Leah M. Mungai, 2021. "Spatial Targeting of Agricultural Support Measures: Indicator-Based Assessment of Coverages and Leakages," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-17, July.
    3. Eva O. Arceo-Gómez & Danae Hernández-Cortés & Alejandro López-Feldman, 2020. "Droughts and rural households’ wellbeing: evidence from Mexico," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 1197-1212, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Julie Wilk & Mattias Hjerpe & Wei Yang & Hua Fan, 2015. "Farm-scale adaptation under extreme climate and rapid economic transition," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 393-407, June.
    2. Huicong Jia & Fang Chen & Enyu Du, 2021. "Adaptation to Disaster Risk—An Overview," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-21, October.
    3. Ranganathan, C. & Palanisami, K. & Kakumanu, K. & Baulraj, A., 2011. "Mainstreaming the Adaptations and Reducing the Vulnerability of the Poor due to Climate Change," ADBI Working Papers 333, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    4. Eakin, Hallie, 2005. "Institutional change, climate risk, and rural vulnerability: Cases from Central Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 1923-1938, November.
    5. Kathryn J. Bowen & Sharon Friel & Kristie Ebi & Colin D. Butler & Fiona Miller & Anthony J. McMichael, 2011. "Governing for a Healthy Population: Towards an Understanding of How Decision-Making Will Determine Our Global Health in a Changing Climate," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, December.
    6. Paolo Prosperi & Thomas Allen & Bruce Cogill & Martine Padilla & Iuri Peri, 2016. "Towards metrics of sustainable food systems: a review of the resilience and vulnerability literature," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 3-19, March.
    7. H.M. Tuihedur Rahman & Gordon M. Hickey, 2020. "An Analytical Framework for Assessing Context-Specific Rural Livelihood Vulnerability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-26, July.
    8. S. Eriksen & P. Kelly, 2007. "Developing Credible Vulnerability Indicators for Climate Adaptation Policy Assessment," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 495-524, May.
    9. World Bank, 2012. "The Welfare Effects of Extreme Weather Events : Insights from Three APEC Case Studies," World Bank Publications - Reports 13039, The World Bank Group.
    10. Nikolaos A. Skondras & Demetrios E. Tsesmelis & Constantina G. Vasilakou & Christos A. Karavitis, 2020. "Resilience–Vulnerability Analysis: A Decision-Making Framework for Systems Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-14, November.
    11. Bhattarai, Basundhara & Beilin, Ruth & Ford, Rebecca, 2015. "Gender, Agrobiodiversity, and Climate Change: A Study of Adaptation Practices in the Nepal Himalayas," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 122-132.
    12. W.Neil Adger, 2001. "Scales of governance and environmental justice for adaptation and mitigation of climate change," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(7), pages 921-931.
    13. Dobler-Morales, Carlos & Lorenzen, Matthew & Orozco-Ramírez, Quetzalcóatl & Bocco, Gerardo, 2022. "Beyond a generalized deagrarianization: Livelihood heterogeneity and its determinants in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    14. Barry Smit & Mark Skinner, 2002. "Adaptation options in agriculture to climate change: a typology," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 85-114, March.
    15. Dutta, Priyanka, 2014. "Reflecting on the role of institutions in the everyday lives of displaced women: The case of Ganga-erosion in Malda, West Bengal," Working Papers 324, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore.
    16. Danielle Emma Johnson & Karen Fisher & Meg Parsons, 2022. "Diversifying Indigenous Vulnerability and Adaptation: An Intersectional Reading of Māori Women’s Experiences of Health, Wellbeing, and Climate Change," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-40, May.
    17. Waqas Manzoor, 2021. "Analysis of the Vulnerability of Farm Households to Flood Risk in Punjab, Pakistan," Journal of Economic Impact, Science Impact Publishers, vol. 3(1), pages 27-38.
    18. Schipper, Lisa, 2006. "Climate risk, perceptions and development in El Salvador," IWMI Working Papers H042374, International Water Management Institute.
    19. Linda Shi & Anjali Fisher & Rebecca M. Brenner & Amelia Greiner-Safi & Christine Shepard & Jamie Vanucchi, 2022. "Equitable buyouts? Learning from state, county, and local floodplain management programs," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 1-20, October.
    20. Haughton, Dominique & Le, Thanh Loan Thi, 2007. "Shifts in Living Standards: The Case of Vietnamese Households 1992-1998," Philippine Journal of Development PJD 2005 Vol. XXXII No. 1, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:7:y:2018:i:3:p:80-:d:154519. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.