BRIEF ACCOUNT ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF MAIZE IN THE ECONOMY, THE HISTORY AND CULTURE OF MEXICO. BREVE PRESENTACION EN INGLES SOBRE LA IMPORTANCIE DEL MAIZ EN LA HISTORIA, LA ECONOMIA Y LA CULTRURA DE MEXICO

8. Centers of origin of crop plants
The eight Vavilovian Centers of Origin for crop plants.

10. .

12. The evolution of maize
• Indigenous farmers were
and are partners with the
maize, not its engineers.
This is what is called
“peasant improvement”
or “native improvement”
and the result of this
process is one of the
greatest human
inventions: maize.

13. Maize diversity
• This long human-plant
coexistence made
possible the
development of a huge
diversity.
In Mexico today there
are more than fifty
maize families of local
varieties, each of
which may have many
cultivars or cultivated
varieties.

14. As many as 5 thousand cultivars
may exit in Mexico

15. The Mesoamerican civilization was strengthened
upon the field crop of maize; through harvesting it,
its religious and spiritual importance and how it
impacted their diet. Maize formed the Mesoamerican
people’s identity.

19. The oldest
representations of the
God of Maiz are related
with fertility,
renaissance,
abundance, wealth and
the incessant recreation
of life. On the fields, in
the temples and
palaces, on their big
steales or on the
simplest earthen vessel
the ancients carved or
painted the image of the
seed, the cob or the
whole plant like one of
the different incarnations
of fertility.

20. Corn meant so much for
ancient Mesoamericans
that this plant came to be
the “axis of their world”,
the “cosmic tree” that
integrates all the plains
and levels of the universe.
This can be clearly seen
on the Foliated Cross of
Palenque.

21. Rulers or governors are
usually depicted with
attributes of the God of Maiz.
The kernels, the cob or the
symbols of maize appeared
on the royal bands or the
headdresses of the rulers
conveying them a divine
nature. Rulers are an
incarnation of the God of
Maiz, in their mortal bodies lie
the regenerative forces of
nature thus the royal power
had the eternal qualities of
Nature cycles.

23. Maize is the single largest food crop in the world, and
in spite of its enormous nutritious value, only 21% of
this massive production goes to human consumption.

25. WORLD CORN PRODUCTION, 2009-2010
Other
29%
U.S.
42%
Mexico
3% Brasil
7%
China
19%

26. US CORN USAGE BY SEGMENT, 2009
Exports
16%
Feed and
Residual
43%
Ethanol
32%
Other
5%
HFCS
4%

27. MEXICAN CORN USAGE BY SECTOR, 2009
Feed
31%
Tortilla
47%
Otros
12%
Industria
10%

28. On january 1st 1994 the corn sector was totally and
immediately opened to US producers. The rhetoric
about a fifteen year transition period for corn with a
tariff free quota system was only that, rhetoric.

29. Under Nafta, the US now sells between six and eight million
tonnes of maize to Mexico every year. The flooding of the
Mexican market with highly subsidised maize produced in the
US plummeted prices for Mexican producers. Although white
maize is preferred because of quality and cultural reasons for
making tortillas, market prices are set by the international price
of the United States yellow corn grade 2

30. It is important to emphasize that tortilla prices increased by a
factor of 5 since the NAFTA entered into force, while subsidies
to the industrial flour industries (specially the two largest
firms, MASECA and MINSA) increased and almost doubled
during NAFTA’s first five years.

31. The 3 million farmers
who grow maize in
Mexico have been
deemed inefficient in
comparison with corn
farmers in the US.
Multi-million subsidies
and technology make it
impossible to
compete, when 70%
are small-scale
farmers endowed with
very small plots of land
(averaging less than 2
hectares),little or no
access to
credit, limited or
minimum use of
chemical inputs and
usually no employment
of mechanical traction.

33. Mexico’s corn growers perform a critical and unrecognized
environmental service of vital importance as the curators of
the rich genetic variability attained by corn in Mexico. This
precious germplasm has contributed in a decisive manner to
global production of corn. Even the dented varieties of the U.S.
Corn Belt are close descendants of the first Mexican landraces.

34. Over half of the maize area planted in the United States has
been genetically modified. The US currently uses transgenic
seeds in 40% of the maize it exports to Mexico, which is a
serious threat for the ability of Mexican growers to conserve
and develop the diversity of maize.

35. Between 1995 and 2006, the US government paid out $56
billion in corn subsidies. In terms of synthetic and mined
fertilizers, the corn crop sucks in nearly 40% of all nitrogen
fertilizer applied in the United States, and upwards of 30%
of phosphorous and potash. Such voracious use of
fertilizers causes all manner of ecological trouble.

38. In rural
Mexico, especially
central and
southern regions
with predominant
indigenous
communities, maiz
e is not only a
staple; against all
odds, it remains to
be the axis
mundi of their
culture.

39. The original milpa it’s not
only a maize field but a
native agro-technology ruled
by the principle of “harmonic
coexistence” between the
two or three different plants
that share the field in a
premeditated way in order to
improve the crop and the
soil. The maize is planted
along with beans and/or
squashes. The beans plant
uses the maize plant for
support and in turn this one
provides nitrogen to the
soil, and squashes provide
ground cover to stop weeds
and inhibit evaporation by
providing shade over the soil.

40. Family units of
small-scale
production and
consumption
commonly
grow
corn, beans, ve
getables and
other crops
mainly for their
own, and what
they have in
excess, they
sell to the
government or
local markets.

41. Corn’s cultural relevance can also be seen in the
care and storage of the crop, from the manual
threshing of the cob to the selection of seeds and
their storage in the house or in cuescomates.

42. The
traditional
process to
make tortillas
represents a
ritual in itself
from the
preparation of
nixtamal, to
the grinding
of the dough
and the
correct
cooking of
each torilla on
the comal.

43. As the tortilla making
process was
industrialised, tortillerías
stopped using the nixtamal
process, a Mesoamerican
culinary invention that
transforms the nutrient
content of maize to enable
nutrients to be better
absorbed by the human
digestive system. The
maize is soaked with lime
and then ground into masa
or maize dough, which is
used to make a variety of
dishes and drinks. Tortilla
production, since the mid
1970s, has replaced the
masa with ground maize
flour, which is nutritionally
inferior.

44. Rural communities
have an integral
use of the plant:
from the roots and
stumps for
fertilizers or
fuel, to the stalk in
crafts and in the
construction; from
the leaves or
foliation to wrap
tamales or
cigarrettes to the
bare cob as fuel or
animal food, or
threshing tool, or
wood polisher or
bottle cork.

45. Traditional Mexican Food is based in corn:
elotes,esquites, pozole, huitlacoche (Corn smut a fungal
disease known in Mexico as huitlacoche, which is prized
by some as a gourmet delicacy in
itself.), tostadas, tamales, atole, tejate, tejuino, quesadilla