1. *Field research was supported by the Ford Foundation, the University of Pittsburgh Environmental Policies Studies Program, the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, and the International Sorghum and Millet Collaborative Research Support Program. Completion of the study was facilitated by grants from the Office of International Research and Development, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and the Rockefeller Foundation center in Bellagio, Italy. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of these institutions and the research collaboration of Nancy Leigh Johnson, Senior Scientist, International Center for Tropical Agriculture.
2. MexicanStudies/EstudiosMexicanosVol.no.19(2),Summer2003,pages 433-462.ISSN07429797 c2003 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, 2000 Center St., Berkeley, CA 94704-1223
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4. 1In1984, research teams composed of Mexican and U.S. researchers spent a total of five months between July and December in the communities.The first phase of research was predominantly ethnographic. Team members engaged in participant observation and conducted informal interviews concerning agricultural practices, cycles of production, constraints to production, community history, patterns of food use, and general health. In the second phase of research,a random sample of families was selected from each community. Male and female household heads in 324 households were interviewed concerning basic demographic characteristics of households,access to land and other agricultural resources, cropping patterns, agricultural production practices, access to other employment opportunities, other sources of income, income resulting from these activities, migration patterns, food use, and sources of food.
5. In1996, U.S. and Mexican anthropologists and an agricultural economist from the United States spent two to three weeks in each of the communities, conducting a survey of at least 30 randomly sampled households in each community and collecting qualitative information. Both male and female household heads were interviewed concerning their own and shared current incomes, landholdings and other economic assets. Men were interviewed concerning agricultural production and migration. Women were interviewed concerning the demographic characteristics of the household and of children no longer residing in the household;their own migration histories;household finance (lending, borrowing, and saving patterns);food consumption;and family health. Researchers from the Instituto Nacional de la Nutricion Salvador Zubiran (INNSZ) collected the data on food