Introduction

The study of young populations is of great interest for various disciplines in social sciences. The XX century and the present one both have been highly fruitful for the study of youth and a large number of phenomena and processes entailed. The present article focuses on agriculture as a labor strategy.

For a long time, analyzing the youth population in the rural sphere was not an interesting topic for social sciences ^{(de Guevara, 2019}; ^{Cruz and González, 2014)} . Young populations were only noticed in research works carried out in the urban environment. These approximations describe such populations on the basis of cultural elements, for instance youth associations (band), or in the sense of belonging to a cultural and/or social expression, always from urban and periurban contexts nevertheless ^{(Feixa, 2012)} . Even if the earliest approaches and descriptions of youth populations seem to represent the reality of these age groups, their social dynamics are not the same in the urban as in the rural environment, since those who belong to the latter also experience prejudice, inequalities, discrimination and stigmatization.

The widely disseminated dichotomy regarding urban and rural spheres, in spite of not being valid in the academic sphere anymore, seems to be in social microspheres ^{(Berardo, 2019)} . Presently, we are able to notice urban, periurban and rural spaces, as well as analytical approaches such as new rurality ^{(Rojas 2020}; ^{Salinas and Sanmartín, 2020)} ; however, the ideas that link the rural, agriculture, livestock, and countryside are still a constant. Owing to the above, the goal of the present article is to analyze the livelihood¹³ strategies of youth populations and the role of agriculture in such strategies.

As regards the concept of livelihood, there is the notion of agency, which ^{Long (2007: 48)} defines as:

The capability to express social experience and design ways to deal with life, even under the most extreme forms of coercion. Within information limits, uncertainty and other restrictions (for instance, physical, regulatory or economic-political); social actors possess the “capability to known” and “capability to act”. They try to solve problems, learn how to intervene in the flow of social events around them and to a certain extent, are aware of their own actions, observing the reactions of others to their behavior and noticing the various contingent circumstances.

In this way, a tangible livelihood is conceptualized and mainly represented in economic or food support —produced for self—consumption—, while intangible, as the sense of belonging to a place, identity aspects —recognizing themselves as farmers—, the sensation of welfare from the production their own food, among others, enabled by the capability to act, in this case, of the youth population.

Literature on the agricultural and rural sphere reports abandonment of the countryside; in Latin America, 80.5% of the population lives in cities, while in the Mexican case, stats indicate that people increasingly migrate to “the city” ^{(INEGI, 2021}; ^{Grynspan, 2019}; ^{Carton, 2009)} . Even if these aspects are true, in reality the rural environment is still important because of the processes that begin there; at present, not only peasant families live there, current dynamics allow other social actors to concur in it.

The integration of agriculture into the young population livelihood strategies depends on the establishment of life trajectories. In this sense, the present article evinces personal and familial situations the young population has experienced and which exemplify the various ways agriculture becomes part of the people’s lives and assimilates into their livelihood strategies.

Rural youth

For decades in social sciences, population studies only focused on adults, which rendered other individuals such as women, youth and children invisible ^{(Weisheimer, 2013)} . One of the milestones that defined studies on youth populations was social movements, which stirred social researchers to notice that such population was unchecked, relegated and even ignored deliberately ^{(Marsiske, 2015)} . Even if such sector was noticed, it did not mean that all youth populations in the country were taken into account for initially attention focused on the cities’ ^{(Santillán and Pereyra, 2020)} .

In the first half of the XX century, social research in Latin America had a strong tendency defined by patterns established by European studies. The earliest works on youth engaged in disclosing the problems and characteristics of such sector, focusing on the urban sphere, and only recognized the existence of another population sector, the rural, which was often described as vulnerable ^{(Pérez et al., 2008)} . During the second half of the XX century, there was interest in specifically deepening into rural youth contexts; in this regard, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico are at the forefront of this sort of research ^{(Feixa, 2020}; ^{Injuve, 2020)}.

A first approach to rural young populations was developed from ethnicity, sexual condition, the environment where they live, age, among others, begin age the most recurrent factor, as it also allows a second approach: statistics. Seemingly, resorting to an age range standardizes the concept, however, reality is more complicated, since officially the international agencies propose a range between 15 and 24 years of age to define whether an individual is a youth ^{(CEPAL/OIJ, 2004)}. Nevertheless, each country defines its own range domestically.¹⁴ In Mexico, every individual between 12 and 29 years of age is considered a youth ^{(Imjuve, 2020)}.

Based on the above, there are two age standards to define who is a youth and who is not. The national, which is used in the stats of each country, and the one of international agencies, which may vary depending on the institution. In this way, there are at least two parameters to define this category, solely on the basis of age. However, in works of social nature, this concept is usually redefined according to the characteristics of the place under study or some rituals that mark the culmination of a stage and the beginning of another ^{(Costa et al., 2019}; ^{De Picciotto 2019)} .

The most interested in finding out about the problems that affect youth, starting from a concept based on age in order to have a standard, are the academy, government, and some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The first sector evolved from social studies that narrated the reality to others increasingly dynamical that focus on current topics ^{(Rebollo and Carreras, 2017)} . The second is interested in creating policies and programs in favor of youth populations. For their part, NGOs address specific issues of the sector, which may be diverse and try to bridge the gaps mainly overlooked by the government. After finding out who interacts with the youth, it is necessary to ascertain their problems and challenges to outline guides to solve or lessen such difficulties. According to ^{Fandiño (2011)} and Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación, Conapred (2018) [National Council for Discrimination Prevention], youth face challenges in five main topics: 1) social exclusion; 2) citizenship and political; 3) inclusion without consent; 4) due to their values; and, 5) regarding future hopelessness. As a solution, ^{Fandiño (2011)} put forward empowerment; for its part, ^{Conapred (2018)} proposes respect and greater participation of youth in decision making that relates to them.

It may be said that the academy finds out the problems that affect youth, the government, by means of its institutions, addresses and remedies problems, while it legislates at once so that difficulties are avoided in the future; whereas NGOs offer attention for specific issues such as social reinsertion, victim support and public health issues. Even if this is the ideal schema, reality is desolating, since in the rural sphere poverty conditions aggravate everything, from the absence of institutions to the invisibility of their problems, mistaking them for customs, as it is the case of teenage pregnancy ^{(Madrid et al., 2019}; ^{Oxfam, 2016; Trucco and Ullman, 2015)} .

The economic aspect is a decisive factor in any sphere, and the rural is not the exception. The concerns and necessities of youth population are subjected to budgetary availability, prioritizing aspects such as health care, security, communication means, among others, making it almost impossible to solve all of their problems. Adding to the above, the current conditions caused by the Covid—19 pandemic between 2020 and 2021 complicate and worsen the situation of youth populations in the rural environment, which turns into lack of opportunities, unemployment, labor precariousness, among others.

In the Latin American context, information from the International Labor Organization ^{(OIT, 2019)} before the havoc wrecked, referred a local economic deceleration that directly affected the creation and/or incubation of new employment opportunities, the quality of existing job posts, self—employment and decreased paid work in the private sector, stressing labor precariousness in the region ^{(OIT, 2019)}. With the lockdown and its extensions, salaried employment suffered a noticeable drop in comparison with informal employment and unemployment, which increased ^{(OIT, 2020a)}.

The health crisis affected the youth to a larger extent, as their unemployment rate changed from 2.7% to 23.2%; that is to say, one out of four youth lost their job ^{(OIT, 2020a)}. Mexico was not the exception, according to figures from Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, INEGI [National Institute of Statistics and Geography] (2020), youth unemployment grew to 25%. As a response, in the rural sphere the number of self—employed, subordinated and paid workers engaged in agriculture increased ^{(OIT, 2020b)}. This scenario demonstrates that labor precariousness is ever present.

Studies by ^{Lucatero and Gaxiola (2019)} , and ^{Martínez et al. (2019)} , among others, disclose the precariousness of people who work without a labor contract, do not have social security and legal labor benefits; as well, there are increasing numbers of highly trained individuals. Moreover, they point at labor flexibility as the cause of this phenomenon. For measurement purposes, this precariousness is usually related with poverty indexes.

Family farming

Agricultural systems in Mexico are mainly classified into three categories: conventional, traditional and organic; each is defined by various scales and needs ^{(Reyes et al., 2018)} . Even if it may be said that in general mass production yields the highest revenues, the importance of traditional agriculture as a livelihood for rural peasant families shall not be put aside. Last but not least, organic agriculture that covers a growing demand of certified produces, adding more value to this sort of production.

Conventional agriculture has the largest scale; therefore, it produces the most and serves as a reference for mass production. It focuses on monocultures, uses agricultural machinery, agrochemicals and irrigation ^{(González and Velasco, 2015}; ^{González, 2008)}. It is common to divide this system into intensive and extensive. One refers to the maximization of production capacity in the short term, using available local natural resources; the other deals with methods of mass production and uses improved seeds, fertilizers, agrochemicals, irrigation, fostering the highest yield by surface unit ^{(Norzagaray, 2010)} .

For Mexico, conventional agriculture grows produces such as: avocado, tomato, chilies, red berries, bell peppers, among others ^{(SIAP, 2021}; ^{SADER, 2020)}; this form of agriculture is bound to supply domestic and foreign demand of crops, vegetables and fruit. However, being mass and costly makes it unsuitable for every culture, especially from the economic standpoint; that is to say, in addition to higher yields, this sort of agriculture is an important source of incomes for those engaged in it.

Traditional agriculture is characterized by amalgamating technologic elements with ancestral cultivation practices, in such manner that there is reduced use of agrochemicals with animal—origin manure; limited use of agricultural machinery and/or work animals to carry out agricultural activities; though, irrigation may be present or not. It is worth pointing out that from this sort of system comes food for rural populations ^{(González, 2018}; ^{Cahuich, 2012}; ^{Gliessman, 1999)} . Expressions of this agriculture are the systems: milpa, orchard, terrace, chinampas, wetland, among others.

^{Torres et al. (2020)} point out that at in difficult times such as those over the Covid—19 pandemic, the relationship of human beings with their environments, on the basis of knowledge inherited from their forefathers, specially emphasize the revalorization of traditional agriculture, to stop seeing it as subsistence farming and refer to is as a livelihood for present generations and generational relays. The diversity of forms in which traditional agriculture is present allows adapting and maintaining this human—nature relationship regardless of production scale.

Agriculture, seen as a livelihood at microscale, is propitious for traditional agricultural systems, since to a large extent they depend on family workforce and other variants such as reciprocal community work ^{(González, 2018)} . Family farming may concur in various ways and agrarian schemas, it is no longer exclusive of a model. However, in order to be considered livelihood, it is necessary to bear other factors in mind, among them, possessing agricultural lands, water availability and even generational relay

When peasants are not the proprietors of agricultural lands, people look for strategies that enable them to work on hired lands or by means of agreements between owners and producers, underscoring there may be land without peasants, not without owners though ^{(Guadarrama, 2020)} . When peasants have this natural resource, the surface tends to decrease over time owing to various factors such as: erosion, soil impoverishment, land allotment for inheritance, among others. The above means that traditional agriculture is still practiced, nevertheless increasingly fractioned ^{(González, 2008)} .

Another important factor in peasant agriculture is generational relay, as it depends on the continuity and repetition of agricultural activities by new generations ^{(Jiménez et al., 2019)} . There are works (Hernández, 2016; ^{Vizcarra et al., 2015}) that consider generational relay a strategy to rescue traditions, methods and know—hows. They recognize, however, that the participation of knowledgeable individuals and young people, the replacements, is necessary. Notwithstanding, seemingly such individuals are growing increasingly distant from agriculture, this is why it is essential to make the importance of this relay evident.

Relationship between youth and agriculture, has the countryside actually been abandoned by this sector?

In works such as those by ^{Trujillo (2019)} and ^{Carton (2009)} there are references to an abandonment of countryside tasks by economically active population in various latitudes. However, it is also indicated that the elderly in the rural sphere still heavily depend on this activity. Entire families depend on peasant agriculture for self—consumption, as a source of employment to earn a salary —agricultural day laborers¹⁵—, or as a complementary activity for livelihood, as reported in the last economic census in Mexico ^{(INEGI, 2020)}. Children and youth also participate, mainly when their families have lands or are farmers,¹⁶ reason why they learnt the tasks, albeit this does not mean they are interested in carrying on with the generational relay (^{Sandoval, 2018}; Hernández, 2016).

There is a discourse that states young people do not want to carry on with labor activities inherited from their parents, mainly if these relate to agriculture. However, this discourse does not consider there is a difference between what is desirable and what is possible ^{(Miranda and Corica, 2015}; ^{Corica, 2012)}. The idea that new generations shall “improve themselves” was largely implanted in the children by their parents, since they want a better future for their offspring and prevent them as much as possible from suffering the lacks experienced by their parents ^{(Sandoval, 2018)} .

In works with employed young people, such as those by ^{Hernández et al. (2020)} and ^{Murguía et al. (2017)} , it is stated that options for employment in their close environment depend on their schooling, the existing labor activities and their social relationships. Plus, the results from the works above show various livelihood strategies; in subsequent paragraphs, the link between this population sector and agriculture in order to verify if there is indeed abandonment of this activity.

In order to analyze, the perception of youth about agriculture as a livelihood strategy, the ethnographic model was utilized ^{(Guber, 2001)} , which is the basis for the present article. The tool to develop labor careers was semi—structured interview ^{(Albuquerque et al., 2014)} , which was held with young individuals in Malinalco, State of Mexico, with a view to discovering their ways to earn money for family support. People who participated had to meet the following criteria: a) being between 15 and 30 years; b) living in the area under study; c) having a job or becoming recently unemployed; d) being connected with the agricultural sector directly or indirectly; and, e) representativeness of women and men among respondents; Table 1 ¹⁷ provides information about them.

Methodology

A total of 13 youth was interviewed; seven men and six women. The analytical line was agriculture as livelihood strategy among young populations in the rural sphere. Results are shown after the configuration of three segments: 1) agriculture as an actual option; 2) agriculture as a temporary activity; 3) agriculture as a main option. Data were analyzed considering the actor—based approach ^{(Long, 2007)} and labor trajectories ^{(Dávila and Ghiardo, 2018}; ^{Maca, 2017)} .

The interviews describe such trajectory underscoring the milestones that motivated significant changes in their experience, in addition to telling about their relationship with the countryside. To hold the interviews, it was necessary to find out the participants’ family context and also their own social and family relationships, since they are a facilitating link at the moment of becoming employed for the first time. The questions that guided this ethnographic fieldwork were: what are the livelihood strategies of youth population? And, how does agriculture integrate with such strategies?

Results

One of the first divergencies noticed in the interviews comes from gender differences. Men envision the possibility of permanently hiring in agricultural activities, either because their families own agricultural lands or because they were taught in childhood. Conversely, women, in spite of having the same characteristics as men and usually support on field activities, they do not see themselves a peasants or land workers.

In the specific case of female respondents, some identify as peasants, since they receive support from state and federal governments for agricultural activities; while others do not see themselves as such because they perceive their participation in the field as complementary to men’s. Women mainly identify with tasks associated with homemaking. Plus, there is an important milestone for them, when they start living with a partner and agricultural activities are relegated by house chores, which become more relevant.

Conclusions

The present work offers a classification of youth population into three segments. One: those who perceive agriculture as a tangible option to earn their livelihood, regardless of their labor aspiration, that is to say, they ended up in this activity fortuitously. In the second segment, we find those who engage in agriculture, while they find another livelihood strategy; however, they do not see themselves in this activity in the middle and long—term. In the third segment, we find young people working in the countryside of their own volition for they find their livelihood, personal realization and governmental supports in agriculture.

The goal of this article is to evince the relationship between agriculture and livelihood strategies for the youth’s livelihood. From this comes out that: 1) the pandemic brought agriculture to light as a feasible economic strategy and intangibly for young population; 2) governmental supports are an incentive for such population to motivate and become farmers or to carry out an agricultural activity; and, 3) youth with a peasant background perceive this activity as a momentary or permanent strategy to obtain their livelihood, primarily or complementarily.