The producers, focus of the chihua squash value network

Although INIFAP has technology for chihua squash production, the producers do not know about it because it is not disseminated. The producers carry out granular, foliar fertilization and at least one application of herbicide and are guided by agroclimate conditions.

The producers mentioned the agricultural year 2015 as a bad year due to pests and lack of rains; the average yields were 0.4 to 0.5 t ha^-1 of chihua squash seed, while in other years 0.5 t ha^-1 to 0.6 t ha^-1 were obtained. Even so, the yields were higher than the official average (0.36 t ha^-1) of the 2009 to 2014 period (^{SAGARPA-SIAP, 2016}). The chihua squash value network is built around the producers (Table 1).

Clients

The clients are the individuals and companies that purchase the product that the focus organization of the value or producers networks offers. In the chihua squash value network there are producers who are also clients. In Santo Domingo Kesté there are intermediaries who purchase seed in their locality and surroundings. The seed intermediaries from the municipality of Escárcega and from Yucatán and Puebla, some of them middle men for the company Semillas y Productos de México S. A. de C.V. (SEPROMSA), arrive in July and August.

In Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Veracruz, the SEPROMSA Company has established agreements with the producers for the cultivation of chihua squash; the company offers them 2 kg of seed per ha, technical assistance, a technological package, facilitates machinery for the harvest and a drier for the seed, and ensures the purchase of seed at $25-35 kg^-1 (^{Panorama Agrario, 2016}). With this the company guarantees a better quality of the product (^{García et al., 2004}).

Suppliers

The suppliers for the chihua squash value network are the actors and institutions that provide what is needed for agricultural production. Concerning the suppliers of seed for sowing, the producers procure the sufficient amount, they select the squashes from which they will obtain the seeds based on their empirical experience; at the time of the harvest they open the squashes and choose the ones that have more seeds to sow the next year. When they don’t have seed they purchase creole squash seed in their locality or in Kesté, which INIFAP recommends because it is the best adapted to the climate and soil conditions in Campeche (^{INIFAP, 2015}).

Most of the producers buy granular fertilizers that come from Mérida, Yucatán, and are promoted by people from Santo Domingo Kesté at a lower price than in the agrichemical houses of the region. They buy herbicides and foliar fertilizers in commercial houses in San Francisco de Campeche, Champotón or their locality, and there is no single supplier. The organic management or biological control for pests and diseases is not applied. Fundación Produce Campeche invited, in February 2016, to generate this technology, so that in the near future there may be proposals for this type of management and control.

The chihua squash producers do not resort to government institutions that provide financing, such as National Financing Agency for Agricultural, Livestock, Rural, Forest and Fishing Development (Financiera Nacional de Desarrollo Agropecuario, Rural, Forestal y Pesquero, FND). The accreditation for the producer in the commercial bank, by Trusteeships Instituted with Relation to Agriculture (Fideicomisos Instituidos con Relación a la Agricultura, FIRA), may be for honey or maize, but it does not include chihua. Of the amount requested, they destine part to Cucurbita cultivation and they show it in the field during the supervision of the backing.

Complementors

The complementors of the chihua squash value network are the organizations and institutions that allow the client to value the product obtained.

The backing institutions that were visited are SDR, SAGARPA State Delegation and FUFROCAM. The chihua squash did not have technical or commercial attention until 2016, when it was included in the economic development axes of the state government to drive its cultivation, improve and disseminate the technology for production, identify and promote the commercialization mechanisms and its possible agroindustrial transformation to flour for instant soups. Among the actions, a space was given to it in the Agrifood Innovation Agenda 2016, with attention to genetic improvement and to production of chihua squash and the possible validation of materials for seed production in Campeche, and of the technological production package to obtain pips. Despite the results from the projects approved that year, the achievements will be known in 2 or 3 years.

The Dietary Innovation Agenda covers technological aspects, without looking for uses for the pulp and even the squash seed. ^{Navarro-Cortez et al. (2016)} developed a snack with a mixture of maize flour and squash seed (Cucurbita pepo), which can be considered a functional food because of the nutritional characteristics of both components.

The organization of the productive chain, which is led by the state SAGARPA, that has started with the recognition of the producers that grow chihua in each municipality, was also promoted. Later, all the links of the productive chain will be formalized in the Chihua Squash Product System of the state, through the figure established in the Sustainable Rural Development Law 2001 (^{SAGARPA, 2016}). This will officially direct the supports and the productive chain, in addition to offering seed, and will include for-hire agriculture, seeking to add value and agro-industrial transformation.

The information from complementors evidenced that there is a production technology elaborated by INIFAP, in the Edzná Experimental Field, which updates the production costs annually; however, the chihua squash producers do not know about it. The production technology used to obtain pips in Campeche (^{INIFAP, 2014}) highlights two aspects: the calibration of the equipment to fumigate and the treatment of water for the mixtures, since the water’s pH in the Yucatan Peninsula is higher than 7.0, and the products for pest control, such as screw-worms of the vine and the fruit and sucking insects. Given that the producer ignores the information, occasionally the crop is lost. In México, as in many parts of the world, the production is affected during the summer due to the high temperatures and relative humidity that favor diseases. This is favored by the trailing growth habit of the chihua squash, which generates optimal microclimates for the development and infection by fungi and oomycetes, such as Phytopthora spp., that cause losses in yield (^{Cohen et al., 2007}; ^{Díaz-Nájera et al., 2015}).

Competitors

First of all, the competitors for chihua squash producers are the adjoining communities that also grow it. In the southeast of the country, producers from Quintana Roo, Yucatán and Veracruz have contacted the SEPROMSA Company and have convened and committed to the production of squash seed. The national seed competitors are producers from Zacatecas, Guerrero and Tabasco, which together contributed 47.7 % during the 2007-2015 period, compared to Campeche, which contributed 24.4 % (^{SAGARPA-SIAP, 2016}). The seed producers from the state of Guerrero have production technology, validated by INIFAP and Colegio Superior Agropecuario del Estado de Guerrero (CSAEGro), since 2007.

Financial profitability

The production costs of the producers were compared to those of the INIFAP technology in Campeche. The small URP for the two localities of study is represented by productions of 1.0 to 1.5 ha, with similar management of the production technology. The activities with greatest variation are workforce for sowing, weeding and fertilization, which is destined to the purchase of fertilizer and workforce for the harvest (Table 2). These variations indicate the different ways of fertilizing and performing agricultural activities by the producers and the production technology from INIFAP Edzna.

The large URP for both localities included from 1.1 to 5.0 ha, in this case the workforce showed a higher tendency to vary with regards to the costs of the INIFAP’s production technology in Campeche (Table 3). The producers did not report expenditure for phytosanitary control because they ignore how to do it. The expenditure for phytosanitary control was calculated with the treatment against pests and diseases of the INIFAP’s production technology.

The information about production costs varied in the two URPs directly depending on the lack of knowledge about the production technology, whether about workforce, dose of fertilizer, herbicides applied, and ignorance about pest control and diseases of the crop. To reduce this variation, and as support for the transference of technology, implementing field schools with the approach of “learning by doing” is suggested, as well as supervision by specialist technicians, like those from INIFAP. The knowledge transferred through theory, practice and reflection-agreements will allow visualizing environmental themes (^{López et al., 2008}; ^{Orozco et al., 2008}). This way of transferring technology already exists in Oaxaca, Guerrero, Chiapas and Quintana Roo.

The highest expenditure of the producers from the large URP corresponds to herbicides and workforce for the harvest (Table 3), which in average is only 3 % higher than in the small URP. However, the intensive use of workforce in weeding and fertilizer application is 2.4 % higher in the small URP (Table 2).

The lack of knowledge about a production technology affects productivity and the production costs, at the same time that it affects the first link in the productive chain. A production technology allows the integrated management of the production’s defining factors, to increase quality, yield and profitability of the agricultural activity (^{Ayvar et al., 2007}). ^{Hertford and García (1999)} and ^{Chavarría and Sepúlveda (2001)} agree that the competitiveness of a productive chain is also affected by economic and non-economic factors. Among the first are the production costs and the availability of technological packages, or production technology. The researchers interviewed manifested that until 2016 the research lines did not contemplate the need for production technology for chihua squash. In that year, with the call from the Agrifood Innovation Agenda, the attention to genetic improvement and chihua squash production began in Campeche. The non-economic factors included infrastructure to improve the access roads and transport, which could contribute to improving production and the producers’ income.

To test the profitability of the crop and the importance of the income for producers from the sale of chihua squash seed, the calculation of the production costs was done with the theoretical yield of 0.5 t ha-1, which is the lower usual annual limit, and average price of $25 000 per ton, which was the price that the producers reported during the agricultural year 2015 (Table 4).

The chihua squash seed production is profitable, because it allows recovering production costs and profits of $2220.00 to $4750.00 per ha, which represents the B/C relationship of 1.22 to 1.64, depending on the URP. This shows that in every case the investment is recovered, a benefit is obtained, and a large part of the family workforce that participates in washing and drying represents savings. However, in the calculation of the production costs, the workdays were taken into account.

Due to the amount of fertilizer applied and the intensive use of workforce for the farming practices, the highest profits per hectare were obtained in the large URP in Kesté and the small one in Hool, and the lowest profit in the large URP in Hool. The empirical knowledge and from technical training of the Kesté producers allows them not to exceed the use of resources. In the small URP in Hool, they do not exceed the use of fertilizers and workforce because of their economic situation; however, the microclimate condition of the plot favors the yields and economic profit.

The income obtained from chihua squash are an additional source for producers, especially for the rural families in the social sector (^{SAGARPA, 2004}). Although the producers do not follow technical recommendations, the crop is profitable and eligible to drive its regional, state and national competitiveness. Middle men in Puebla, Nuevo León and Estado de México demand the seed, because it is raw material for the green mole and pipian pastes (^{Ayvar et al., 2007}).

During the harvest, the chihua squash seeds are extracted with machetes, they are placed in tubs and buckets and they are washed to take off the excess pulp. The seeds are dried out in the sun, dispersed on rooftops, sidewalks, terraces, roads or other spaces. As consequence, the activities of harvesting, washing and drying are carried out without sanitary norms, in instruments and containers that are used for each activity in the seed management. This absence of innocuousness can produce allergies and intoxication in consumers from the presence of toxins, viruses and bacteria (^{Trigos et al., 2008}). Human manipulation of vegetables with good agricultural and management practices is necessary to decrease the diseases transmitted to the consumer through foods. The biological dangers are evident and have an effect mostly on the economy of international trade (^{Martínez-Martínez et al., 2013}). This is why producers need to start with good agricultural and management practices to obtain safe products and gain access to the national and international market.

The chihua squash producers prefer to work individually. However, the lack of organization affects the purchase of inputs, the solutions to pest and disease problems, the access to market information, and even the negotiation with buyers. It also makes the management of certain volumes of production impossible, as well as obtaining a better price. The lack of organization, financial support and infrastructure for the conservation or transformation of the harvest prevents the producers from offering a product of good quality, in a specific time, and gaining access to the spaces of national and international commercialization (^{SAGARPA, 2004}).

The chihua squash production will be favored when the organization and integration of the producers begins, and with other actions such as the group purchase of inputs, obtaining dryers and the consolidate sale of the seed. For the positioning in the regional and national market, it is necessary to communicate among producers the importance of improving the harvest, washing and drying of the seed, with innocuous processes, in order for it to be sold as a safe food.

This study identified a different scheme of agricultural production between the community of Guatemalan origin (Santo Domingo Kesté) and the community of Mexican origin (Hool). Therefore, a study directed at defining the sociocultural and socioeconomic factors that motivated the community of Guatemalan origin to carry out five relay cultivation cycles from April to December.