HSD: Market Integration and Climate as Drivers of Change in the Mexican Maize System: Multi-Scale Interactions in Livelihood and Land-Use Change

理解食物系统对全球变化的敏感性受到与自然环境和人文景观之间的跨尺度相互作用相关的高度不确定性的限制。要确定一套合理的未来可能包含什么，就需要有一个基线情景，该情景要抓住在不同治理层面上影响决策的最重要因素，并突出系统当前对与气候变化和经济和文化全球化相关的压力源的变化和相互作用的敏感性。该项目将通过评估世界上最重要的粮食系统之一--墨西哥玉米系统的驱动因素和不断演变的社会结果，来建立这样一个基线。在先前预测气候变化将对墨西哥玉米生产产生负面影响的研究基础上，农业市场的全球化进一步挑战了墨西哥玉米的未来，一个由社会和生物物理学科学家组成的跨学科团队将从复杂的粮食系统角度调查墨西哥农业的脆弱性，在这个系统中，假设个人种植或不种植玉米的决定表现为景观尺度的变化。研究小组还预计，由于特定地区的文化、经济、人口、生态和政治因素，全球到地区的价格信号和气候变化将对墨西哥各地的当地粮食生产和土地使用结果产生不同的影响。该项目涉及：a)描述不断变化的国家玉米生产地理以及与之相关的社会经济、体制和人口关系；b)分析与玉米生产、产量和灌溉农业用水有关的气候趋势和变异性；C)对三个玉米生产州玉米价格波动的空间模式进行计量经济分析，以评估玉米价格波动对农场一级风险的贡献；d)通过锡那罗亚州、墨西哥和恰帕斯州的案例研究，评估农场一级玉米废弃/持久性的驱动因素(例如，价格和气候)和结果(土地使用、对粮食质量的看法和家庭玉米支出)。将结合使用多种方法，包括探索性空间数据分析(ESDA)、计量经济学分析(空间、时间序列和空间面板)、农业气候分析和家庭生计调查。这个跨学科和多方法的项目涉及墨西哥和美国的经济地理、计量经济学、空间分析、生计评估、气候学、农业生态学和公共政策方面的专家。它将为随后对墨西哥未来社会生态变化和粮食安全脆弱性情景的发展研究提供基础。该项目巩固了一个强大的国际合作研究社区，涉及亚利桑那州立大学、加州大学圣巴巴拉分校、墨西哥学院(墨西哥城)、南方学院(恰帕斯)和国家林业、农业和畜牧业研究所(墨西哥城INIFAP)。该项目旨在通过邀请项目外部的墨西哥专家参加年度项目协调会议的一部分，分享他们的研究和见解，从而在整个项目实施过程中加强这一网络。来自美国机构的研究生将与墨西哥的研究同行合作。该项目的方法和结果将作为地球系统科学、区域分析、发展经济学和可持续食品系统的研究生和本科生课程的案例材料。该项目的诊断和分析结果将通过各种论坛传播给国家农业部长(SAGARPA)的玉米政策专家、锡那罗亚州、墨西哥州和恰帕斯州的州农业部、对土地利用变化和玉米多样性感兴趣的非政府组织以及墨西哥和美国的学术界。

Understanding the sensitivity of food systems to global change is limited by high uncertainties associated with the cross-scale interactions between the natural environment and the cultural landscape. Defining what might be within a suite of plausible futures requires a baseline scenario that captures the factors that are most significant in shaping decisions at different levels of governance, and which highlights the current, changing and interacting sensitivities of the system to stressors associated with both climate change and economic and cultural globalization. This project will create such a baseline by assessing the drivers and evolving social outcomes of one of the world's most important food systems: the Mexican maize system. Building on prior research that anticipates climate change will have negative impacts for Mexican maize production, and the globalization of agricultural markets is further challenging the future of maize in Mexico, an interdisciplinary team of social and biophysical scientists will investigate Mexican agricultural vulnerability in terms of a complex food system, in which individual decisions to plant or not to plant maize are hypothesized to manifest as landscape scale transformations. The research team also expects that global to regional price signals and climatic variability will affect local food production and land use outcomes differently across the Mexican landscape, as a function of regionally-specific cultural, economic, demographic, ecological and political factors. The project involves: a) a description of the changing national geography of maize production and the associated socioeconomic, institutional, and demographic correlates; b) an analysis of climate trends and variability as related to maize production, yields and water availability for irrigated farming; c) an econometric analysis of the spatial patterns of maize price volatility in three maize-producing states in order to evaluate the contribution of maize price volatility to farm-level risk and d) an evaluation of the drivers (e.g., prices and climate) and outcomes (land use, perceptions of food quality, and household maize expenditures) of maize abandonment / persistence at the farm-level through case studies in the states of Sinaloa, Mexico and Chiapas. A combination of approaches will be used, including exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA), econometrics analysis (spatial, time-series, and spatial panels), agro-climatic analyses, and household livelihood surveys.This interdisciplinary and multi-method project involves experts in economic geography, econometrics, spatial analysis, livelihood assessment, climatology, agroecology and public policy in Mexico and the United States. It will provide the foundation for subsequent research on the development of scenarios of future social-ecological change and vulnerability of food security in Mexico. The project consolidates a strong international collaborative research community, involving Arizona State University, University of California Santa Barbara, the Colegio de Mexico (Mexico City), the Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Chiapas), and the National Institute of Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research (INIFAP, Mexico City). The project aims to enhance this network throughout the project's implementation, by inviting Mexican experts external to the project to participate in part of the annual project coordination meetings to share their research and insights. Graduate students from the U.S. institutions will collaborate with research counterparts in Mexico. The approaches and findings from the project will be used as case material for graduate and undergraduate courses in earth system science, regional analysis, development economics and sustainable food systems. The diagnostic and analytical results of this project will be disseminated through a variety of forums to maize policy experts of the national agricultural secretary (SAGARPA), state agriculture ministries in Sinaloa, State of Mexico and Chiapas, non-governmental organizations interested in land use change and maize diversity, and to the academic communities in Mexico and the U.S. The project's results will also be disseminated to Mexican authorities responsible for climate change initiatives nationally in order to contribute to the efforts of these agencies to comply with international climate change agendas.