A Conversation with Don B. about Maize
Don B. lives in a village about ten miles from Guanajuato in the state of Guanajuato in Central Mexico. He began working the fields at age 8 and still tends his own milpa (patch of maize, beans and squash) producing enough maize each year for himself, his wife, and (I’ll have to check) his donkeys, goats, and chicken. He doesn’t know exactly when he was born but the guess is that he’s around 70 years old.
I asked him about the different kinds of maize in Mexico. Here’s a slightly reorganized account with a few explanatory comments in brackets.
People like me grow maíz criollo (that is traditional landraces of maize). We plant in June as the rains come and we harvest three and a half months later in October. It yields really well. It has just one cob per plant. The grains have a tinge of yellow (not yellow yellow like American maize) and the grains are few and big and it’s easy to get them off (that’s really important for women because taking the grains off with your thumb is thumb breaking work). The seed stores don’t sell this kind of maize. We don’t select before we sow, we just sow whatever we have. If we don’t have enough we just buy some from a neighbor. The price is about NM$6 a kilo.
We also grow a bit of maíz pozolera (bigger grains for pozole) that takes five months. And then there is maíz rojo (red maize) that takes four months and maíz negro (black maize) that take three and a half months. We use those for pozole too.
People who have irrigation water grow maíz híbrido (hybrid maize that has been available in Mexico since the mid twentieth century). They can plant in May before the rains come and it takes five months to grow. It is only just beginning to put out its ears when we harvest maíz criollo in October. They harvest it in November.
They buy the seed from the seed stores. It’s been carefully selected by engineers of agriculture. It costs NM$30 pesos a kilo. It’s grown on big farms. It has three cobs per plant and yields a lot of weight. The ears are much bigger than those of maíz criollo but the inedible bit in the middle is much larger, the grains are much smaller and they are much more difficult to get off the ear. They can sell it for a much higher price than maíz criollo because it is much heavier. They sell this to the tortillerias (or presumably to Maseca) who come and take it away in big trucks. The tortillerias like it because it is whiter than maíz criollo.
(And what about maiz GM, maiz transgénico?). Puzzlement. Never heard of that.
(And what happens if maíz híbrido crosses with maíz criollo). Grin. (IMPORTANT CORRECTION) The maíz criollo wins. The offspring has just one ear and it’s much smaller.
Well, that’s just one conversation in one part of Central Mexico. I could offer a good bit of voiceover but for the moment I think I’ll just let it stand as is.
Thanks for these posts Rachel. I am still rereading your other posts trying to understand. I may have some more questions. Thanks again.
BTW, what do farmers like Don B think of NAFTA? Is it possible to ask them?
I’ll give my admittedly hypothetical analysis in the next few days. But you cottoned on to one point. Don B has perhaps heard of TLCAN, as NAFTA is called in Mexico, on the evening news. And he can certainly talk fluently about his perception of imported American maize. The rural Mexican worker is no dummy. But with little schooling and limited access to information, and nattered at by politicians and NGOs alike, he is in an even worse position to decide such complicated issues than you and I, even though his livelihood may depend on the outcome.
Thanks Rachel. What i am trying to find out is, if NAFTA has any real impact or it just posturing?