The Backyard of Tlaxcala: An Approach II

Abstract

In the State of Tlaxcala, Mexico, approximately 30% of rural production units have an area adjacent to the home, the backyard; in this agroecosystem some of the functions reported in research on the subject are reproduced. Despite its cultural importance and its contribution to the economy of rural families, few studies have been done to describe its characteristics; the basic information questionnaire applied by INEGI to ejidatarios, commoners, small landowners responsible for land or houses with agricultural or forestry activities, from the register of agricultural producers in the state of Tlaxcala, in 2004, was used, with a total of 53,968 Production Units (PU) surveyed, of which 17,131 said they had land for agricultural and forestry activities on the land next to the house. Microsoft Office Excel 16 was used to obtain the frequencies. Class ranks were calculated to show the results; 78.15% of the land is privately owned; 97.88% of the rural housing are privately owned; 45% of the backyards that use irrigation for crop production have an area equal to or less than 1,000 m2 ; 86.00% of the units that use irrigation use white water. 53.51% of these units use covered canals; finally, 66.73% of the PUs that responded report the tepetate between one and 50 cm deep, a situation adverse to the crop production potential of Tlaxcala's backyards.