Fragile Lands of Latin America Strategies for ... - PART - USAID

An Economic Analysis of Huastec Forest Management 199
tional in temperate zone small farms. Home gardens can fulfill family
needs for nutritious fruits and vegetables (DeWalt, 1983; Fleuret &
Fleuret, 1980). But it is short-sighted to overlook the advantages of
groves which meet other needs in addition to those met by gardens.
Huastec, for example, have chosen to maintain gardens and groves.
The te'lom system has potential for improvement. It is an old,
widespread system of forest management developed by peasants to meet
their needs (Alcom, 1988). It is a flexible system into which new crops
such as coffee have been fit without reducing its subsistence support
functions. Other high profit, low labor and low capital intensive peren-
nial crops with markets could be introduced to improve income pro-
duction from these groves. For example, nursery plants and orchids
could easily be produced if market connections were developed. In the
Huasteca, one specific improvement would be improved access to mar-
keting networks. Access to markets would enable farmers to take ad-
vantage of the 50% of their existing fruit production that now rots on
the te'lom floor for lack of buyers. The object of such improvement,
however, would not be to transform the te'lom into an intensively
managed modem agroforestry system with complex and risky market
relationships. Striving after such a goal could result in the loss of the
conservation and subsistence functions of the te'lom.
Efforts to improve smallholders' commercial productivity should
primarily focus upon other components of their farms. The te'lom grove
would be retained as the component with a strong subsistence fbnction.
In the Huastec area, for example, farmers consistently ask for help
growing beans and improving their maize yields. Both of these goals
are consonant with recent national interest in reducing imports of basic
food crops by increasing production within a given nation's borders
(e.g., Bailey, 1981 ; Browne and Hadwiger, 1986; Grindle, 198 1 ; Toledo
et al., 1985). Huastec farmers would, however, most welcome more
productive sugarcane. At present, they eagerly bring home cuttings of
sugarcane they find growing in plantations outside the region for as-
sessment under Huastecan growing conditions. Honey production could
also be promoted by creating a better infrastructure for marketing
honey to private buyers. Improving labor-intensive production in other
farm components will also serve the added function of reducing pressure
on forests as population increases. Loans for improving other compo-
nents of the farmstead should have provisions requiring the retention
of forest groves.
In order to develop diversified farmsteads having a grove component
appropriate for introduction or encouragement in other areas, existing
systems should be studied, and resident farmers should be involved in
the process at all levels. Similar grove systems are found elsewhere in