Study area

According to the thematic maps of ^{INEGI (2001)}, the physical and biotic description is as follow: the ejido "The Castañón y Anexos" is located northwest of the town of Catorce, San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The main settlements are ejido Charco Largo and Castañón. The first is located at 101° 12' W and 23° 51' N, at an altitude of 1920 m; the second at 101° 16 'W and 23° 49' N, at an altitude of 1994 m. Physiographically, the ejido is located in the Provincia Mesa del Centro, Sierra y Lomerios de Aldama y Rio Grande subprovince. The geological substrate is formed by custlers form the tertiary and quaternary periods. According to the drainage surface location is located in the Salado hydrological region, and the underground hydrology presents an average permeability units composed of unconsolidated material. Its dominant soil is calcium xerosol and the secondary is haplic, of medium structure, petrocalcic and burdensome in phases. The climate is classified as BS₀kw''(e), that is, dry warm with an average annual temperature between 12 and 18 °C, the average temperature of the coldest month between 3 and 18 °C, wet summer, winter precipitation rate greater than 10.2 mm, and hot summer. The annual rainfall (weather station Santa María del Refugio) from 1951 to 2010 was 300.1 mm (^{CNA, 2013}). The vegetation types are mainly Microphyllous desert scrubland and, to a lesser extent, Desert shrubland rosetophilous.

Survey on the rangeland management and the degree of actual satisfaction

A questionnaire was designed to interview only the ejido members in charge of livestock parcels, based on those used in similar studies (^{Osorio, 1974}; Bolaños, 1996^[2]). Efforts were made to ensure that the questions will generate information on the problems observed during the previous tours in the area of study, and the perceived in conversations and interviews with the ejidal main actors, about the process of parceling since its conception. The project was presented to the ejido Assembly on the June 2, 2013, we obtained permission to do it between December 2013 and February 2014 and the ejiditarios of the localities Charco Largo, Castanón, Santa María del Refugio, Los Pames, Tanque Colorado and Santa Isabel were interviewed. In total, 41 questionnaires were applied to an equal number to the ejidatarios that manage 58 of the 62 existing livestock parcels. Those in charge of the remaining plots were left out of the interviews for refusing to be interviewed.

For the analysis and interpretation of the data generated by the survey was designed a database in Excel^® 2007. The information collected through the survey is summarized and presented in tables and references in the results and discussion.

Estimating stocking

The corresponding calculation for livestock of different age and function was based on equivalents to the standard animal unit (AU) proposed by ^{Vallentine (1965)} and ^{Alba (1971)}, and for other livestock species equivalences used in AU the US Department of Agriculture, cataloged for payment of grazing rights in Arizona (^{Arizona Agricultural Statistics, 2001}).

Attachment to land and current degree of satisfaction

Almost all the interviewed ejidatarios are in conformity with their status as farmers and feel comfortable with the way and standard of living; only one of 41 said he would have liked to have been born elsewhere and make different activities instead of farming. None believes that owning ejido lands forced him to live in this place and deprived of better employment opportunities, income and lifestyle. Expressed overall satisfaction is quite remarkable and could be related to the history of the ejido, particularly with the personal characteristics of their leaders and other members to recognize their problems and provide solutions, which earn them a satisfactory welfare. This disagrees with the findings of ^{Finkler (1974)} in the arid Mezquital Valley in Hidalgo, where there was a strong temporal Mexico City emigration, and he attributed it to the dryness of the land, the lack of innovative production processes and marketing. ^{Fernandez and Fernandez (1971)} mentions that the main problem in the ejidos of croplands is that each member was provided with a small parcel surrounded by other similar parcels, without the possibility to make transactions with them. The same author notes that if the ejidatario worker is a bad workman or has vices, will remain there, without thrive by the conditions of the land and a bad working environment. However, these conditions do not occur in Castañón.

What happened in Castañón agrees partially with that recorded by ^{Lewis (2002)} in the Yaqui Valley in Sonora, where the economic and legal reforms in combination with the features of this agricultural region, resulted in a better use of the land of the ejidos, due to that the ejidatarios rentiers can dedicate to other activities, while the tenants produce with effectiveness. In "The Castañón y Anexos", after 20 years of managing their livestock parcels as private property, 91.4 % of those interviewed believed that the condition of their grazing lands improved. In contrast, 8.6 % believes the opposite; these include an ejidatario that reduced its herd of 100 to 45 cattle and other did so 70 to 30, because they could no longer take advantage of all the communal rangeland and livestock and overlord its livestock parcel, but the third ejidatario increased its herd of 10 to 30 cattle. Another reason given for the degree of satisfaction with the parcellation is the increase in production of their herd; thus, 81.8 % of those who raise cattle (n= 33) consider that its production increase; this same appreciation is shown by 53.8 % of those who also graze goats (n= 13) and sheep (n= 5, 40.0 %); in contrast, those who maintain equines (n= 28, 85.7 %) considered that its production remained the same.

Satisfaction with the division also related to increased availability of forage in pastures. Thus, 26.8 % of respondents ejidatarios negotiated access of foreign cattle to their parcel, six ejidatarios without livestock rented their land to ejidatarios of the same and other ejidos, even to small landowners neighboring Castañón; 90.9 % of those who did, received a small remuneration and 63.6 % of applicants for such access were producers from outside of Castañón. This differs from that recorded by ^{Lewis (2002)} in Sonora, where 70 % of ejido parcels are rented, and of these, up to 96 % to private producers. The remaining 30 landowners graze their own livestock and are not interested in negotiating with their surplus forage. The increase in the amount of forage contrasts with the findings of ^{Cruz and Aguirre (1992)} in the communal rangelands in Tiltepec, Oaxaca, whose utilization is exclusive to the villagers and 90 % of the farmers interviewed had noticed impoverishment of forage species preferred by sheep and goats. It also differs from that recorded in Cameros, Spain, by ^{Lasanta (2009)}, who points out that the shortage of fodder, forcing farmers to buy almost 50 % of the food consumed by their herds.

The obvious benefits of the parceling has already attracted interest from other ejidatarios of the municipality of Catorce, from other municipalities of the state, and the state of Zacatecas, particularly by the apparent improvement in the condition of the rangeland, in such a way that they want to promote this process in its ejidos. Thereon, there were 31 allusions to the intention of other ejido members to promote a similar segmentation, particularly in the Tanque de Arenas and Santa María del Refugio ejidos, both adjacent to Castañón. The latter has already started to search for agencies for delimitation and measurement surfaces to parcel the common use areas. In addition, there were eight cases of ejidos in other municipalities of San Luis Potosi and two more in an ejido of the Mazapil municipality, state of Zacatecas (Table 1).

Table 1 Castañón knowledge about the intention of other ejidos^†, of dividing their rangelands (into parcels) under common use. 

^† n=15 ejidatarios. A same ejidatario could mention more than one ejido.

Current knowledge about the ejido origin and the parceling of the areas of common use

Nowadays still survive two participants ejidatarios in the creation of the ejido, but only one remember in which year happened and what the affected property was. The elapsed time since the ejidos do was set up in 1946, explain the general ignorance of the origin and the lack of interest of new generations of landowners to know its history. Regarding the process of fragmentation, all said they supported the decision to parcel out, certify, and titling of common areas, 83.9 % admit to know the main actors in this ejido process, 36.6 % of the institutions supported this initiative, and only 7.9 % know those which opposed it. At the same time, all they opted for full ownership of your "solar", crop parcel and pasture parcel, none exchanged their land and only one sold part of their land to another ejido members. Thereof, this contradicts assumptions about the disintegration of the ejidos and the sale and land grabs resulting from parceling and individual titling (^{Lesorogol, 2005}; ^{Aguirre, 2012}). As ^{Lesorogol (2005)} points out, the results of privatization of communal grazing lands are empirical questions that require more research instead of jumping to any conclusions derived from any given theory.

Animal husbandry

The 94.3 % (33 of 35) of the ejidatarios breed mostly cattle and only two breed goats exclusively. Table 2 presents the number of cattle in 1993 and 2013, as well as those other species in 2013. The herd of cattle was reduced by 186 between 1993 and 2013, of which 117 belonged to individual ejidatarios, and 69 to grouped. In the other species include goats, of which almost 82 % belong to individual ejidatarios (Table 2). The majority of the ejidatarios also has animals for pulling and load (equines) and for sale or home occasional consumption (rams and goats).

Table 2 Livestock inventory according to utilization of the parcels^†, in parcels of grasslands of the ejido Castañón and Annexos (Catorce, SLP). 

^† n = 35 responsible ejidatarios for 58 livestock parcels. ^¶ As the 1993 data are generic and in order to make them comparable with the 2013, these are not expressed in AU.

The freedom to decide the use the livestock parcel in Castañón contrasts with that recorded by ^{Jameson et al. (1984)} in the ejido Noria de Guadeloupe, Zacatecas, where only the wealthier families can graze its cattle in areas with higher forage potential (scrub and halophyte zacatal), and the access is not granted to other landowners. The families with fewer economic resources, that is, with minimal herds, only can graze his goats near the village in impoverished scrub dominated by "Gobernadora" Larrea tridentata (DC.) Coville and Hojasén Flourensia cernua DC., and so on the social scale within the ejido limits the possibilities of using resources to which everyone has equal rights.

Initial and current cattle herds

As in most of the ejidos in dry and sub-humid regions, few ejidatarios had most of the ejidal herd, whereas many lacked or had few animals (^{Aguirre, 1982}, ²⁰¹²; ^{Jameson et al., 1984}). Those who possessed many, lack of or had little livestock, were the main opponents of the parcelling of the ejido, because the first had more than 13 000 ha, although shared and deteriorated, and since then they would have to adjust with only 222 ha. Those who have nothing and those who have a few livestock did not understand the benefit of having an exclusive cattle parcel for them, but they were easily persuaded by explaining them that they might increase their herd or rent their land and earn income that was not previously received. In 20 years, 17 ejidatarios reduced the size of their herds between 6 to 68 cattle, and the other 13 increased between 3 and 60 cattle. But there were three ejidatarios that did not change the size of their herds during that period.

Among the reasons given to change or maintain the size or composition of their herds from the subdivision of the parcels, the most frequent (14.4 %) was of those who start increased it to have better control of their paddocks, although the drought from 2010 to 2013 forced them to reduce it through the timely sale of livestock to download their paddocks, or primarily by mortality. The second important change among those without prior increment had to reduce their herds by drought (13.4 %). In contrast, five ejidos that operate on an individual basis (14.3 %) increased gradually the size of their herds, as initially only had 2 to 20 cattle, and in 2013 had herds with 18 to 60. Of the remaining three (8.6 %), one pointed out that his herd decreased by disease and drought, another because its parcel did not have the capacity to keep all their cattle, and the latter reduced by drought and overload. In Tiltepec, Oaxaca, without restriction of use of the communal rangeland, 60 % of the "comuneros" interviewed increase the size of their herds, but those who did not, identified as major causes insufficient grazing area, limited availability of forage and the frequent need to sell animals to meet various economic needs (^{Cruz and Aguirre, 1992}). Similar explanations of comuneros were recorded by ^{Contreras et al. (2003)} in Yanhuitlán, Oaxaca.

Bovine exploitation

The predominant economic activity is in the ejido livestock paddock, particularly cattle, because the ecological constraints that characterize rangeland in the region. The main production system is cow-calf (^{Callejas et al., 2014}), which is a permanent breeding herd for delivering calves to sell when they are weaned, and part of the milk is collected to make fresh cheese, whose main markets are the municipalities of Matehuala and Vanegas, SLP, the town Estación de Catorce and the metropolitan area of Monterrey, Nuevo León. Of the ejidatarios that dedicated mainly to grazing cattle (n= 33), 31 produce meat and milk, and two produce only calves for sale at weaning. Among the first, the cows are milked partially during four months, and then all the milk is for the calf until six or seven months old, when they are weaned. Most weaned calves are sold in the county seat of Vanegas. This dual purpose system of production is similar to "rejeguería" utilized by small and medium farmers in the Southeast. The dual purpose grazing cows are milked by hand and with the support of the calf, which is allowed milk from a nipple and to use all the remaining milk in other nipples. This proximity with calves and their mothers allows unrestricted selection and obtain the best heifers for replacements, which is difficult in the specialized systems of meat or milk productions. The advantage is available daily milk for consumption and sale daily (fresh) or weekly (cheese), which helps cover everyday expenses till the biannual sale of calves (^{Osorio, 1996}; ^{Manjarrez et al., 2007}; ^{Vilaboa et al., 2009}).

Herd composition

The herd overall of the ejido in 2013 had 74.3 % of breeding cows, 3.1 % bulls, 11.8 % growing bulls or heifers, and 10.8 % calves, which is similar to that reported by ^{Holechek (1992)} for ranches of medium size (250 AU) in New Mexico, between 1986 and 1991: 76 % of breeding cows, 6.5 % stallions, and 16.5 % for replacement heifers. In Castañon, the size of the individual herds ranged from 2 to 80, with an average of 23.6 cattle and in the ejido there are 520 cows, of which 428 are dual-purpose, 91 are from herds for production of weaned calves, and only one for milk production. The growing bulls or heifers (92) of the ejido are intended mainly for the replacement of players; the 152 offspring (between males and females) are for sale at weaning or for replacement of breeders. The 17 bulls in Castañon would be sufficient in accordance with the relationship considered optimal by ^{de Alba (1985)}, from 20 to 30 cows per bull; however, many have a surplus rate in their herds, whereas others request breeding service by rent or loan. The highest frequencies (18.2 %) were for ratios of 10 and 16 cows per bull; with two mentions, ratios of 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 17, 20 and 25 cows per bull. Even with the cow mortality caused by the most recent drought, there is an excess of bulls in many individual herds, which is uneconomical. This situation contrasts with the rangeland of Chihuahua, where the herds have 40 cows on average, a relationship cows/bull 40:1 (^{Callejas et al., 2014}), greater than the highest recorded in Castañon, although deficient in accordance with the recommended (^{de Alba, 1985}).

The ejidatarios are making efforts to improve their livestock, since 83.9 % of the herd is a mestizo of any European breed with creole cattle, 6.4 % are animals of any race, and 9.7 % is creole cattle valued due to its rusticity. This differs from the ejido ixtlero of San José de la Joya, Coahuila, where there are about 100 cattle crossed with Holstein, Beefmaster and occasionally Cebu breeds (^{Torres et al., 2008}). In Castañon there is no improved breeds of dual purpose, but highlights the management capacity of the ejido for the acquisition of bulls with government subsidies.

Stocking rate

The stocking rate (cattle grazing in a certain area), must be expressed in terms of AU ha^-1; the carrying capacity of a rangeland is the necessary area to support a AU in a productive and persistent manner for an indefinitely time (^{Holechek et al., 2011}). The average stocking rate was slightly higher (5 %) in the grouped plots, but in most cases individual parcels overload occurred (Table 3). ^{Cruz and Aguirre (1992)} found in the communal rangelands of Tiltepec, Oaxaca, a ratio of 0.26 AU ha^-1, which, according to the Technical Advisory Committee for Regional Determination of Coefficients of Rangeland (^{COTECOCA, 1980}) was three to five times higher than the recommended. In the same region (Yanhuitlán, Oaxaca) with the same tenure and use, the stocking rates were 8.7 higher than the recommended (^{Contreras et al., 2003}). Sheep farming in communal areas of southern Tunisia stocking is 0.05 to 0.14 AU ha^-1, the load capacity is 0.03 AU ha^-1 to 0.04 AU ha^-1, that is, an overload of 67 % to 350 %, which occurs in areas close to population centers, while other less accessible are underused (^{Hanafi and Jauffret, 2008}).

Table 3 Stocking (AU^†) and surface (ha) in livestock plots^¶ of the ejido Castañón and Annexas, Catorce, SLP (year 2013). 

^† AU animal unit. ^¶n = 35 livestock ejidatarios responsible for 58 plots.

^{Ortega et al. (2008)} point out that the coefficients of rangeland (indirect estimates of the load capacity) for the six types of shrub of Chihuahua vary from 13.5 to 60 ha AU^-1 (^{COTECOCA, 1979}), whereas for the corresponding rangelands for scrub Helpless Parvifolio for the Altiplano Potosino in excellent condition, the coefficient assigned is 21.15 ha AU^-1 (^{COTECOCA, 1974}). Thus, the current average loads of Castañón rangeland can be considered moderate, but there are landowners with abusive loads in its parcels and suffered the consequences of the recent drought. The persistence of this trend in personal parcels seems a remnant of the dominant behavior in the community use of rangelands (^{Pinos et al., 2013}).

Length of mating period

In Castañón, mating period is two months for 63.6 % of cases, 90 d for 9.1 %, and 15.2 % for four months. Three landowners mantain a bull with cows in periods other than those mentioned, and one ejidatario did not answer, so in Castañón controlled mating period is quite adequate and contrasts with the complete lack of breeding herds in the majority of the ejidos. The most frequent mating periods on the ejido take place between April and September. The control of mating allows to adjust herd breeding to forage availability, which for cattle is closely linked to the phenology of grasses (^{Carpenter, 1998}).

Reproductive efficiency and productivity

The main indicators of the efficiency of breeding and production of cattle on rangelands are the percentage of births from the total of cows with a bull and the performance (live weight ha ¹) of weaned calves, respectively. Out of 399 cows exposed to matings in 2012, only 278 gave birth (69.7 %), a rate considered to be moderate to good according to the classification proposed by ^{de Alba (1985)} for beef cattle after puberty. It is also similar to that found by ^{Callejas et al. (2014)} in herds of 20, 50, 200 and 500 breeding cows in four regions of Chihuahua, where the average of births was 71.0 %. In 2013 ended a period of more than two year of very low precipitation and forage production. Of the 278 calving cows only 180 (45.1 % of cows mated to a bull) weaned their calf, a proportion considered poor by the standards proposed by ^{de Alba (1985)} for losses between birth and puberty. The calf crop was identical to that recorded in rangelands of New Mexico (USDA, 1936) and lower than that later found in the same region (75 % ^{Holechek et al., 1991}; 62 %, ^{Winder et al., 2000}). According to ^{Holechek et al. (2011)}, the calf crop in the western US rangelands decreased 50 to 60 %. In Castañón breeding efficiency, i.e. the proportion of cows who weaned a calf, with respect to the total of cows, was 64.7 %. An important part of the calves loss in Castañón was due to the drought between 2010 and 2013, which reduced very much forage availability and agreed with that reported by ^{de Alba (1985)} about large variations in calves losses after the perinatal period until weaning, due to climatic and nutritional conditions.

Livestock technology

From the surveyed ejidatarios 69.7 % received government or private technical assistance to manage their cattle in the past five years, a 100 % provided minerals, 54.5 % gave a supplement with purchased feed and 63.6 % used chicken manure, poultry manure, urea or molasses as a concentrated supplement. This indicates that there are favorable conditions for further modernization with the adequate technical assistance, along with effective implementation of government programs to promote productivity in Castañón. In contrast, no ejidatario carried out assisted reproduction practices, probably for its higher costs and technical requirements. Out of the ejidatarios producing cattle (n = 33), 97 % used worming products and vaccines in their cattle for the blackleg (Clostridium chauvoei Blackleg); the health practice with lowest proportion (almost 70 %) was the antiparasitic bathroom. This contrasts with the results of ^{Lopez et al. (1981)} who compared ejido and private goat farms, regarding the immunization against endemic diseases as it is performed only in the latter. In almost 85 % of cattle herds, there was livestock death during 2012; in 53.6 % of these cases the cause was a shortage of forage due to the drought, another 24.9 % was starvation by the drought combined with other factors, 10.7 % attributed to undiagnosed disease, labour dystocia and predators, 7.1 % to blackleg and 3.6 % to bloat. The above indicates that a significant number of the ejidatarios had herd loads beyond the capacity of their pasture, and the mortality attributed to the drought was the logical consequence of the abuse of the rangelands. In contrast, 33.3 % of the producers kept their animals even with the drought, and also allowed access to cattle of other ejidatarios and other nearby ejidos, to avoid starvation.

Livestock infrastructure

A rangeland set-up involves having water holes, fences, management pens and roads, and other facilities (^{Holechek et al., 2011}). All the ejidatarios dedicated to breeding and animal management (n = 35), have water holes in their farming plots, 94.3 % with mineral licks, 97.1 % have internal fences for grazing rotation and 82.9 % had other equipment or installation, either shared or individually. During the parceling process, there was consensus among the ejidatarios to establish at least one earth dam (to dam surface runoffs) or watering hole in each livestock plot, which cost was covered by each ejidatario, and were simultaneously made in order to lower their costs. For all ejidatarios with individual plots, this earth dam is the main water source of their livestock.

Almost 87 % of the ejidatarios said that the amount of available water for their animals during the year is insufficient; of these, nearly 84 % of them carry their supply from the Santa Maria del Refugio dam, located 11 km from Castañón, or worse, from Estación Catorce, located 41 km away. Castañón is listed by the San Luis Potosi State Government (SEDARH) and the Rural Development District 128, SAGARPA, as a production unit suffering from water scarcity (V. Sánchez, personal communication^[3]; S. Espinoza, personal communication^[4]). Because of that, in 2012 through the Transversal Project for Arid Zones Development (PRODEZA), a dam was built and an underground water distribution system was installed to complement the existing earth dams in each parcel.

In the ejido there are 79 salt licks, mostly made out of recycled material, like used tires or half cut liquids containers. These movable salt licks help to improve the grazing distribution and reduce sacrifice areas (^{Gillen et al., 1984}). In the rangeland of the ejido there are 112 divisions, almost twice of that generated by the parcelling. Thanks to the ejido organization, various government programs favored them with materials for dividing fences, which explains the number of pastures today. The usefulness of appropriate rangeland clearance and load control was demonstrated by ^{Price (1948)} in rangelands of a ranch in New Mexico, where the increase in the number of pastures, water holes and salt licks, with only a third of the original stocking, doubled the rates of birth and weaning weights of calves in 22 years. As well as obtaining the highest annual amount of commercial lives weight per hectare. To this regard, ^{Hart et al. (1993)} and ^{Bailey et al. (1996)} found that, by reducing the paddocks size and the distance to water, the forage utilization improved and grazing uniformity increased.

Almost 86 % of the ejidatarios supplemented feed for their cattle during the dry season in the recent five years using nopal Opuntia spp., "maguey" Agave salmiana Otto ex Salm-Dyck, "mesquite" Prosopis laevigata (Humb. & Bonpl. Ex Willd.) MC Johnst., "cardenche" Cylindropuntia imbricata (Haw.) FM Knuth, "izote" Yucca filifera Chabaud or any other forage resource that grows in its grazing lands, which was steadily performed during the mentioned drought. Even in the most rational way of harvesting these forage resources, noticeable differences are evident regarding those ejidos without rangeland parcellation.

Forage crops

According to local SEDARH and SAGARPA agents, the ejidatarios at Castañón need to integrate their farm parcells to livestock practices to improve their results with the cattle and reduce the lack of fodder risks, without considering that it is more important for them to produce corn and beans for self-consumption in their runoff receiving plots (^{Gallegos et al., 1991}; ^{Charcas et al., 2010}). Although it is possible to produce dry feed crops in both rainfed agricultural cycles, the hay or silage process is unknown at the ejido. Two thirds of the ejidatarios sow fodder crops to provide them green to their animals; from these, nearly 70 % said corn and oats were their main crops. Meanwhile, those who do not produce forage crops argued that these crops produce little in those conditions. At the same time, 63 % of the ejidatarios mentioned that having grazed their fallow fields, 94.3 % said they gathered agricultural wastes such as straw and stubble to feed their animals, and almost 69 % collects manure from their livestock concentration areas to apply it in the agricultural parcel in order to improve soil fertility. Thus, the area of cultivation and pasture are themselves closely related. At Tiltepec, Oaxaca, from April to May, 50 % of the villagers gave supplement to their cattle and sheep: wheat, millet, bean straw, corn stover, corn cobs, alfalfa, corn and chopped squash in their plots, though the available amount of these supplements did not cover all their needs (^{Cruz and Aguirre, 1992}).

Development and conservation of rangelands practices

The ejido is naturally unproductive, therefore costly investments are impractical, but there are several low-cost practices to restore or increase production, apart from the main one being the livestock reduction. In this regard, the ejido received official funding, mainly for restocking nopal and maguey and terracing, to reduce runoff and increase infiltration and soil retention. After the parcellation, 97 % of the 35 ejidatarios repopulated grazing livestock forage plants, especially maguey and nopal, made no controlled burning of vegetation, and only 11.4 % fought undesirable plants, as greasewood, "tasajillo" Opuntia leptocaulis DC., "dragon's blood", Jatropha dioica Sessé ex Carv and "gatuño" Mimosa biuncifera Benth. The recent drought caused the landowners recognized the need to reduce its effects, like having a stocks of forage produced in their work parcells or remnant in their rangelands. Likewise, they are also more aware of how the whole production system may collapse, so most of them pay more attention to the carrying capacity of their rangeland, to the permitted grazing intensity, the pasture rotation and control of undesirable species.

Castañón is listed as a pilot ejido by various government programs and its internal organization makes it easier to obtain financial support from all three government levels, yet the ejidatarios believe these programs only benefit the official instances, because the from the received subsidy, most payments goes to for services to their animals, such is the case of the PROGAN. The official agents remark that the financial support should be allocated to higher technology improvements, such as mobile electrified fences.