Introduction

Rural women play an important role in animal production throughout the world, particularly of poultry, pigs and small ruminants. These animals have the advantage that they can be bred at low cost (near the household or in common property lands), and they provide multiple benefits (food, fertilizer, traction, income, savings) (^{Peacock, 2005}). In addition to taking care of them and feeding them, women participate in the elaboration and sale of products derived from animal production, for example dairy and leather and wool handcrafts. This does not mean, however, that they are formally the animal owners, or that they can benefit directly from their processing and sales. In general, women face difficulties of access and control of grazing lands, water, fodder, credit, veterinary services, markets and other essential resources for production; this situation makes their work difficult (^{Eade and Williams, 1995}; ^{Budak et al., 2005}; ^{World Bank, 2009}; ^{FAO, 2012}).

Minor livestock is part of many technological packages of support to the countryside because of its recognized capacity to strengthen food security (^{Martínez-González et al., 2013}). However, gender relations around its production have not been adequately studied or understood in the design of public policies. Sometimes women are the ones who manage flocks, but they are not recognized as such by the people who promote the packages. Diverse studies (^{Todd, 1998}; ^{Flintan, 2008}; ^{Pollot and Wilson, 2009}; ^{Taj et al, 2012}; ^{FAO, 2012}) have shown that the programs that integrate gender issues (information disaggregated by sex, prior research about the family and community structures that rule access to resources, or outreach sensitive to gender) obtain positive results that benefit not only women, but the whole domestic group.

This article pursues two objectives. The first one is to analyze the work relationships in the sheep and goat production systems in México, while the second one is to propose some ideas, based on this analysis, to make the feminine participation in minor livestock breeding of peasant units visible. The article is made up of four remaining sections. The first two offer a panorama of the presence and utility of sheep and goats in the country, while the latter two analyze the conceptualization of work and propose new ways to do it. It is argued that the gender perspective allows documenting and analyzing men and women's work in animal production, as well as the gender problematic around access and control of lands, inputs, veterinary services and credit. Incorporating this perspective into the study of minor livestock leads to better design of the public policy directed at strengthening food security in México's peasant communities.

Presence and distribution of small ruminants in México

Both sheep and goats were introduced to America with the Spanish invasion of 1492 (^{Nahed-Toral, 2002}). Those who are present today in the country are called "Creole" because they are descendants of the ones brought by the Spanish, although new breeds have been introduced in the last 25 years (^{Tovar, 2009}). Sheep and goats have been adapted to the rural and culinary culture of México for the elaboration of traditional dishes like barbacoa (center of the country), cabrito (in the north) and chivo cebado (in Puebla's and Oaxaca's Mixtec region).

In the past five years, México has presented an increase in the inventory of sheep: from 6'050,000 in 2005 to 8'219,386 heads in 2011 (^{Pérez et al., s.f}; ^{SAGARPA, 2011}). Table 1 shows that half (49_%) are distributed in five states: Estado de México (15.9l%), Hidalgo (13.4 %), Veracruz (8.1 %), Oaxaca (6.1 %) and Puebla (5.5 %). The presence of goats has decreased, particularly in San Luis Potosí and Chiapas (two states that were traditionally strong), and increased in Veracruz and Sinaloa due to the introduction of Australian breeds in the northwest and the expansion of Pelibuey in Veracruz (^{Amendola et al., 2006}). The regional distribution has a lot to do with the type of animal. In the north the breeds used are specialized for meat production, while in the center the cross of breeds that feed mainly in pasturelands predominates. Finally, hair breeds prevail in the south of the country (^{Pérez et al., s.f.}).

At the end of the 19^th Century, goats were the third export product in México. Between 1994 and 2004 there was a reduction of 10 % in the number of heads at the national level, while globally it increased in 21 % (^{Gómez et al., 2012}). Throughout the 2000s, the fall in México continued (^{Tovar, 2009}). Despite this, the national inventory of goats is slightly larger than sheep's. ^{SAGARPA (2011)} documents a total of 9'004,377 heads, half of which (50 %) are in five states: Puebla (14.9 %), Oaxaca (13.4 %), Guerrero (7.5 %), Coahuila (7.3 %) and San Luis Potosí (6.8 %) (Table 1). The goats have adapted to the arid or semi-arid regions of these states thanks to their ability to survive in situations of scarcity and the extensive management that flocks are given (^{Nagel et al., 2006}; ^{Escareño et al., 2012}).

The number of sheep and goats in México is low, in comparison to other places of the world. Data from FAO (in ^{Pérez et al., s.f.:3}) indicate that the sheep world population in 1999 was 1,083 million heads, distributed in Asia (38.3 %), Africa (19.7 %), Oceania (15.8 %), Europe (15 %), South America (9.7 %), and North and Central America (1.5 %). For goats, ^{Escareño et al. (2012)} state that there are 617 million, with higher proportions in Asia (66 %) and Africa (27.4 %), and lower in Europe (3.5 %) and America (3 %).

Principal products: meat, sheep wool and goat milk

México is the 17^th meat producer in the world (^{Escareño et al., 2012}). However, in the ruminant sector, beef concentrates approximately 95 % of the market value. The consumption of sheep meat was 1 % of the total in 2011, with 1.0 kilograms of consumption per capita, compared to 16.5 kilograms of beef. By 2005, the amount had only increased to 1.3 kilograms annually per person, and in 2011 its consumption was 0.95 %) (^{Pérez, s.f.}; ^{Morales et al., 2004}; ^{Améndola et al., 2006}; ^{Arteaga, 2012}). With goat meat, something similar occurs, since it represents 0.85 % of the national market (^{Gómez and Echavarría, 2006}).

Other products obtained from small ruminants are sheep wool and goat milk. The first has a presence in four states with artisanal textile tradition (Hidalgo, Estado de México, Zacatecas and Tlaxcala), but it is in decline because of the increase in synthetic fiber use. In 2008, 4518 tons of wool were produced, with a fall of 31 % compared to 1980. In 2011, the production remained virtually the same (4696 tons). Wool has a quite low profitable price (3.49 pesos per kilo) and is currently imported from Argentina, China and the United States (^{Salinas et al., s.f.}; ^{Financiera Rural, 2010}; ^{Arteaga, 2012}). In turn, 75l% of the goat milk production is concentrated in La Comarca Lagunera (Coahuila and Durango) and Celaya (Guanajuato) (^{Améndola et al., 2006}).

The problems with commercialization of these products are the following: unstable market, absence of guarantee prices (^{Hernández, 2000}); presence of intermediaries (^{Gómez and Echavarría, 2006}); low levels of production and use of technology (^{Pérez et al., s.f.}); low yield and profit margin (^{Salinas et al., s.f.}; ^{Gómez et al., 2012}). To avoid the use of intermediaries, the aggregation of value and the creation of microenterprises (for example, for goat's cheese), are proposed, although they also tend to face market problems.

Work relationships in minor stockbreeding: a gender analysis

In the characterization of productive systems there is a central theme: the role of labor. As the system is more intensive, it will require less work due to the technification of the productive process, and vice versa. In other words, in the intensive production system, it is clear that it saves in labor, while the extensive or mixed one uses it in abundance (^{Escareño et al., 2011}). This section analyzes the role of work in minor stockbreeding practiced in México, with a gender approach.

Theoretical-methodological alternatives to the study of minor livestock with a gender approach

The gender approach is a product of the second wave of feminism that arose in the 1970s. It has been used to analyze the symbolic construction of the social world stemming from sexual difference. This analysis has made possible documenting the existence of an educational system and a labor market segregated by gender, the double or triple workday of women, different forms of gender violence, the scarce feminine participation in formal spaces of politics, among many other contributions.

The concept of gender refers to the set of roles, personality traits, attitudes, behaviors and socially-constructed values assigned to each sex. While biological sex is determined by anatomical characteristics, gender is learned through socialization and, therefore, could vary in time and space from one culture to another. Gender is a relational category that does not refer solely to women or men, but rather to the relationships between both. In this sense, gender analysis is the strategy used to study the differentiated impact of laws, policies and programs on men and women. As such, it entails obtaining information disaggregated by sex to understand the different opportunities, forms of participation and benefits that women and men derive from specific initiatives (^{UNEG, 2014}).

In the field of agricultural and livestock systems, the pioneering work by ^{Boserup (2007)}, published for the first time in 1970, made clear that modernization has a differentiated impact on men and women, in detriment of the latter in terms of policies of agrarian reform, technological transference and credit services. Women have received much less land than men, and they have been excluded from technological innovation and access to credit. This is a reality that is still seen in most countries of the world, although it was detected several decades ago (^{World Bank, 2009}).

Different women authors have developed concepts that help explain the persistence of these inequalities. The trend of Gender, Environment and Development (Género, Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo, GMAD) incorporates the viewpoint of gender to the discussion about sustainability, when analyzing the labor gender division and the role of different institutions in recreating inequality in the management of natural resources within specific ecosystems (^{Rico, 1997}; ^{López-Castellano, 2013}). The strategies proposed to reduce this inequality are feminine empowerment and transversalization of the gender perspective in laws, policies and programs of all the development areas and levels of government, with the aim of women and men enjoying the same rights and opportunities (^{Inter-Agency Standing Committee, 2006}; ^{Holvoet & Inberg, 2012}).

The GMAD trend could make notable contributions to the study of minor livestock in México. It allows redefining some basic concepts, for example, "productive system", which as its name implies, refers fundamentally to the work of the "producer", assuming he performs his activities in an isolated manner and that his work is the most important because it implies the transformation of goods, the production of services, and the generation of value. This vision impedes considering reproductive work, that is, the time devoted to raising children, taking care of other people, and domestic labors, which are commonly women's responsibility. Reproductive work has not been recognized as such and is not taken into account in the scientific analysis and the formulation of policies. Incorporating it into the analysis allows differentiating by gender the availability of time and the specific knowledge about certain processes and scopes of action. Considering both productive work and reproductive work also allows taking into account basic issues of gender justice, for example, the double workday of women, thus avoiding for animal breeding programs to reproduce it or increase it (^{Leach et al., 1999}).

Another concept that must be reformulated for a better analysis is that of family, whose definition under a patriarchal view includes the man who provides and the woman who takes care, where the first is the one who contributes monetary resources and makes economic decisions (investments, acquisitions), while the latter performs domestic work and provides physical, psychological and affective attention to sons and daughters. It is assumed that both roles are complementary and experienced in harmony. Transporting this vision to the study of peasant production implies considering women as incapable of generating monetary resources, making decisions and performing certain activities (^{Kabeer, 1995}). In the case of minor livestock, it means ignoring her handling of herds and contribution to domestic economy. This viewpoint much limits the type of participation that women can have in a specific program.

Amartya ^{Sen (1987)} suggests moving from the model of family harmony to one where the "cooperative conflict" is acknowledged. This new model demands visualizing differences of power per gender, age, kinship, between members of a family, in addition to a non-unitary vision where there is always the possibility of cooperating for the common good, but also of entering into conflict around the use, access and control of material and symbolic resources. This proposal allows understanding in a more reliable manner the distribution of labor between different people, the patterns of animal property, the process of decision-making around the adoption of new technologies, the family strategies for marketing certain products, and the limitations that the lack of access to lands for grazing, water, cultivation and fodder imposes, among other important aspects for animal breeding.

In sum, family is one among many institutions that determine the access of men and women to resources that can be critical for survival. Each member has different power to decide, negotiate and act, product of gender asymmetries. In many cultures men have the privilege of imposing measures on others (^{Kabeer, 1995}). This fact cannot be ignored by promoters of technologies for animal breeding, when what is attempted is precisely to increase the possibilities of success of their interventions.

Animal science and public policy destined to the sector have great challenges ahead. It is important to design field tools that are sensitive to gender (workshops and interviews with women and men, questionnaires that ask about the tasks of all members of the family). In the phase of information collection, it is not advisable to address only the "head of the household", assuming he knows everything with regard to the animals. Only thus could there be data like those by ^{Merkel et al. (2009:145)}, who identified a "larger proportion of women than men who describe themselves as full-time producers" in the goat industry in the United States. The generation of data disaggregated by sex is fundamental to explore the activities of women and men in the productive systems of the country and to design policies and programs according to the needs of the beneficiaries (men and women).

From a conceptual point of view, it is advisable to abandon the terms "producer" and "family labor", in order to explore the gender division of work that operates in each productive system; that is, to distinguish exactly which activities are performed by women and men of different ages, why and how they vary from one context to another. The mere description of activities (who does what) should be transcended, since each activity is charged with value and grants power to whoever performs it (^{Kabeer, 1995}). In México and other places in Latin America, some studies use the term "housewives" to refer to women in the countryside, and it is thought that their work constitutes "help" for the head of the household (^{Deere and León, 2003}). It is necessary to transcend these terms to begin to identify patterns of labor participation by gender in the different modalities of the Mexican minor livestock. What activities do women and men of different ages perform in the sheep and goat productive systems in México, under what circumstances and why? How do ecosystems, the size of herds, and the activities of other members of the production unit influence this? How can we relate all these elements in analytical models that make visible the work and contributions by men and women of different ages in each one of the three productive systems for minor livestock?

It is also necessary to compare the monetary contributions obtained from animals in relation to others: agriculture, sale of products of non-animal origin, remittances, paid work. A finer analysis even calls for exploring the relationship between net profits and patterns of use of income by men and women. The exchanges and negotiations inside the family around the responsibilities and workloads, the power relations in decision-making and the distribution of benefits, the gender differences in access and control of inputs (water, land, credit, veterinary services) are fundamental for understanding the dynamics of the productive system from the gender perspective.

At the moment of performing the analysis, the production units must be placed within a broader context of market liberation, withdrawal of supports for family and diversified agriculture, growing demand for beef, expansion of intensive stockbreeding, monopolization of markets, process of land snatching and loss of genetic resources (^{Eade and Williams 1995}; ^{Sinn et al. 1999}; ^{World Bank 2009}; ^{FAO 2012}; ^{Califano and Echazú s.f.}). According to FAO (in ^{LEISA editorial, 2002:6}), a third of the 4,000 breeds of domestic animals is in danger of extinction. Productive units respond to these challenges by making changes in the land uses or by prioritizing certain activities over others, which has consequences differentiated by gender and age.

In the case of México, it is worthwhile to add to this scenario the following contextual elements: migration and violence in the countryside; projects for energy generation, mining and wind farming; droughts and flooding caused by global warming; loss of biodiversity (grasses and wild weeds). Each one will have differentiated impacts on the work that women and men perform in relation to animals. For example, access to natural and human resources can be reduced, as well as the capacity to make decisions. The workloads and rights to property will vary with changes in land ownership. The nutritional state of women, girls and boys can be affected as production is directed more at the market than to self-subsistence. If women distance themselves or completely abandon animal production, invaluable genetic resources and traditional knowledge related to this are placed at risk, in addition to the food security in their households.

Conclusions

Sheep and goats are marginal in México, compared to their presence in other parts of the world. With regard to beef, their consumption is also reduced. However, both species are an important part of the Mexican rural and culinary tradition. The size of the sheep herd in México has increased in recent years, compared to the goats'. Currently, the main sheep product is meat, since wool is in decadence due to the growing use of synthetic materials. In the case of goats, milk production is more important than meat, but it is concentrated only in two regions of the country (Comarca Lagunera and Celaya, Guanajuato).

The production of small ruminants has been classified into three types: intensive, semi-intensive or mixed and extensive. The first refers to confined animals with a high use of technology; it is a minority in both species. In the second, animal production is combined with agriculture, so that animals contribute nutrients to the crops from which they frequently feed. The third and last one refers to grazing as the main activity. The theme of work relations is central to the discussion, because it is assumed that if there is less labor, the degree of technification will be higher, and vice versa.

Four ways of analyzing work relations in these productive systems were found. In the first, it is assumed that the producer (male) is the one in charge of supporting the whole family, performing and deciding about all activities, including animal production. The second already recognizes that they live within a family and uses the term of family work, without distinguishing or explaining who works and why. In the third, the term starts to acquire a face: it is women, children and the elderly, without distinguishing contributions by them. The fourth approach is more comprehensive because it covers not only animal care, but also processing of its byproducts, which makes women's work visible. However, this last approach would have to incorporate key elements from gender theory to increase the complexity of its analysis, among them gender division of labor, gender differences in access to resources and benefits, and the different power of decision between men and women.

The article offers new theoretical-methodological routes to analyze the minor livestock productive systems in a more effective manner. The GMAD trend allows redefining some basic concepts, for example, productive system, family, and work, which in turn leads to methodological strategies that make the participation of women and men of different ages visible, in the three productive systems identified in the country, and in the various stages that each one involves. It also allows analyzing animal production with regard to all the strategies for diversification performed by the different members of a family.

These new definitions allow us to reformulate basic questions that we felt were already answered: Why do people have animals? How many? Which do they (men and women) prefer? Why? Whose are they, really? Who owns the land, water, fodder, with which they are fed? What do they do with the money that they earn when they sell one? From what other activities do they obtain economic resources to survive? The answer to these questions, always framed by the broader context of globalization and market liberalization, will allow overcoming the terms that make invisible the gender division of labor, the dynamics of access to resources, and the distribution of benefits by gender in animal production.

In conclusion, scientists (women and men) specialized in animal production, and program designers, should start from the fact that gender relations are very important for the maintenance or improvement of any productive system. These relationships should be analyzed in research initiatives and taken into account in intervention programs with the aim of increasing equity in labor distribution and the benefits among the population being addressed.