The Yaqui Valley Revisited: A case study on agricultural sustainability in Mexico
Researchers
The Yaqui Valley is the birthplace of the Green Revolution and one of the most intensive agricultural regions of the world, using irrigation, fertilizers, and other technologies to produce some of the highest yields of wheat anywhere. It also faces resource limitations, threats to human health, and rapidly changing economic conditions. In short, the Yaqui Valley represents the challenge of modern agriculture: how to maintain livelihoods and increase food production while protecting the environment.
The purpose of this project is to examine what has happened in the Yaqui Valley since the Stanford Project left the Valley in 2007. Emphasis will be on fertilizer use; water allocations; institutional changes in water, credit, and ejido villages; and agricultural prices and subsidies. More generally the emphasis will be on sustainability in the Valley, and on whether various measures of sustainability have improved or worsened.