RESEARCH ADVANCES IN PRODUCTION SYSTEMS THAT THEY INVOLVE BEANS IN MEXICO

Abstract

Production systems involving more than one species in simultaneous or relay sowing have been practiced in Mexico since pre-Cortesian times and currently continue to be of great importance in food production, especially by farmers who own agricultural areas of small size (Lépiz, 1974). These systems are generally identified as traditional agriculture, based on empirical knowledge accumulated over centuries, consisting of a series of practices and cultural elements developed from a strategy of productivity and not high production, where not everything that is produced is always It has an exchange value, but values ​​of indispensable use are generated in the family economy (Ramos and Hernández X., 1977). Although in the last 50 years production has been oriented towards the development of commercial agriculture, with a tendency to the violent displacement of traditional systems, currently a recognition of the value and contribution of traditional agricultural technology has emerged, since there is awareness of the need to study and understand our native systems and value them in all their magnitude before changing them for modern type agriculture (Lépiz, 1978). The association, intercropping and imbrication of beans with other species are a classic example of traditional production systems and are practiced in Mexico on around one million hectares, mainly under rainfed conditions*.

The work carried out on systems involving beans at the National Agricultural Research Institute has focused initially on evaluating their productive and economic efficiency and then on seeking the improvement of such production systems. The information collected allows us to affirm that these systems are more efficient in taking advantage of the farmer's resources and environmental variations, in relation to sowing alone of one species or another; In some areas, recommendations have been generated for the corn-bean association, for beans in relay of corn and for the intercropped corn-bean system, recommendations derived from work on varieties, population densities and fertilization doses, mainly. Some results of research on the most common production systems that involve beans are described below.