Maps Unearth How can CIMMYT know where its research efforts would most effectively help the poorest communities? A recent poverty mapping project could be of assistance by bringing to light the location and magnitude of poverty in Mexico. |
Because they are based on averages or means, national indicators often
do not reflect the complexity or extent of poverty in a country. The 2004
United Nations Human Development Report showed a Gross Domestic Product
for Mexico of USD 637.2 billion— the world’s ninth highest
in 2002. However, Mexico is also a country of huge gaps. For example,
of the 55 countries cited by the Report as having “high human development,”
Mexico had the greatest inequality between the richest and the poorest
20% of its inhabitants. Data from 1990-2002 show that more than a quarter
of inhabitants live on less than USD 2 per day.
“You find these pockets of rural poverty that just aren’t being addressed,” says CIMMYT geographic information systems specialist Dave Hodson, coleader of the project “Geospatial Dimensions of Poverty and Food Security – A Case Study of Mexico.” “They’re outside global markets and they’re outside the private sector, so who’s picking up these rural people?” Says human ecologist Mauricio Bellon, Hodson’s colleague on the project: “If we think that CIMMYT’s mission is about addressing the needs of poor farmers, we need to know where they are.” This effort belongs to a wider poverty mapping initiative implemented by FAO, UNEP, and the CGIAR, with funding from the government of Norway.
Looking at the Layers
Poverty maps show where the poor are located. They can be important tools for identifying economic disparities and the least developed areas in a country. By the same token, they may suggest where development programs—including agricultural research and policies—could make an impact.
This project focuses on Mexico, but its methods can be applied anywhere. The research team, which included several Mexican partners, measured variations in food insecurity and poverty over time and across regions, as well as drawing implications of rural poverty’s spatial distribution for CIMMYT’s work.
Looking for data that would indicate levels of poverty, the researchers identified common variables between the 2000 Mexico Census and a government survey that combined household income and expenditure in 2000 and 2002. To predict where poverty was most likely to occur, these data were integrated with other variables, such as environmental characteristics, population density, and accessibility to major urban centers, in a geographic information system.
Poverty’s Trademark: Subsistence Maize
Farms and Highland Indigenous
Communities
Researchers ran the initial predictive model for slightly more than 100,000 rural Mexican communities of fewer than 2,500 people and compared results to official poverty lines. They predicted that almost half—40,879—of the rural localities were “extremely impoverished,” with average monthly expenditures that did not meet basic food.
The researchers’ predicted model results strongly correlated with independent findings. For example, 83% of the locations predicted to be below the poverty line are in areas that are targeted by government anti-poverty programs.
How can these communities make the most of their assets
to diversify agriculture, raise incomes, and stop the soil erosion that
will prevent their land from being productive in the future? Some of the
answers may lie in
conservation agriculture technologies that are being developed and promoted
by CIMMYT researchers and its
partners. If these technologies succeed, more farmers might be able to
stay on their land rather than
lose or abandon it.
Poverty in Mexico is associated with non-commercial maize and bean production, zone with steep slopes, and indigenous communities.
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January, 2005