Location of the study area

The Miahuatlan District is located southwest of the state of Oaxaca. The study area includes 32 municipalities belonging to the region of the Sierra Madre del Sur of the state of Oaxaca, this district is located at the geographical coordinates North latitude: 15° 40’ 55’’ to 16° 19’ 45’’ and longitude West: 95° 11’ 41’’ to 96° 35’ 57’’. The territorial surface is 3 937.97 km² and has an altitude of 1 600 meters above sea level. District 26 of Miahuatlan is bordered to the north by Sola de Vega, Ejutla, Ocotlan, Tlacolula and San Carlos, Yautepec and to the south by Juquila and Pochutla (^{Arellanes, 1996}). The District of Miahuatlan is considered a potential area for the production of agave and mezcal due to its agroclimatic characteristics (^{Bautista and Ramírez, 2005}).

Definition of sample size

The sample of maguey producers of the District of Miahuatlán was obtained from the list of producers that made the State Office of Information for the Sustainable Rural Development of Oaxaca (OEIDRUS, Oaxaca) in 2011, in this pattern it was found that the District of Miahuatlán it had 624 maguey producers. It should be noted that only in 16 of the 32 municipalities that make up the district were maguey producers identified (^{OEIDRUS, 2011}).

The sampling design was determined from the formula for a sample of proportions of maximum variance (^{Infante and Zárate, 1990}), which is expressed as follows:

Where: n= is the sample size; N= is the total population of 624 maguey producers in 16 municipalities of the study region; β= is the precision in percentage equal to 10%, the confidence level was 95% (Z ² =1.96), p and q are the joint probability, where: p= 0.5 and q= (1-p) = 0.5. The estimated sample size was n= 83 producers, representing 13% of the total population. Two surveys were eliminated because they presented atypical information. The application of the producer surveys was carried out randomly.

Instrument used and sources of information

The competitive and socioeconomic positioning of maguey has remained static during the last five years (^{SIAP, 2018}). Therefore, the information collected; through a personalized survey of maguey producers, carried out between June and July 2014, it was considered valid.

The surveys were applied in the potential area of maguey production in the district of Miahuatlan, in the municipalities of Miahuatlan de Porfirio Díaz, Monjas, San Cristóbal Amatlán, San Francisco Logueche, San Jerónimo Coatlan, San José del Peñasco, San José Lachiguiri, San Luis Amatlán, San Pablo Coatlán, San Simón Almolongas, Santa Ana, Santa Catarina Cuixtla, Santo Tomás Tamazulapán and Sitio de Xitlapehua.

The variables included in the survey were grouped, according to the classification proposed by ^{Knowler and Bradshaw (2007)} in: general aspects where questions were included as the name of the producer, municipality and locality.

Socioeconomic aspects, in this section we inquired into issues related to peasant organization, agricultural land available. Production process, which includes the maguey production process from the preparation of the land to harvest. The survey was applied during the months of June and July 2014, applied to producers who work their plot and who lived in the locality at the time of the application of the survey.

Statistical analysis of information

The variables used to stratify the types of producers in the District of Miahuatlan integrate information related to socioeconomic aspects (age of the producer, years of being a producer of maguey, number of economic dependents and number of family employees), agricultural area (total surface of land) available, number of properties and temporary agricultural area) and practices or activities related to the production of maguey (hours dedicated to the production of maguey, distance to which sows the maguey plants, width of melgas, years for harvest, number of employed wages, number of pineapples obtained and weight of the pineapples obtained).

The answer options of the questionnaire were rated with discrete and binomial scales. Due to the complex nature of the information and after standardizing it and verifying the multivariate normality of the data, the main components technique was applied (^{Cuevas and Rosales-Nieto, 2018}). To reduce the number of factors that differentiate the types of producers, the rotation method used was the Varimax standardization with Kaiser. Subsequently, the cluster analysis was used to graphically identify producer groups with homogeneous characteristics. The identification of the strata was carried out using the Ward method and the Euclidean squared distance (^{Borja et al., 2018}).

To analyze the identified groups, descriptive statistics were used, frequencies and for the ordinal variables the Kruskal-Wallis test was applied, since when performing the normality test the quantitative variables did not comply with the normality test (Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk test) of data (p< 0.05). The analysis of main components and cluster were made with the statistical package SPSS27 and Matlab V16.

Social dimension of productive family units

The PS are of advanced age (62 years of median value, p= 0.001) and they are those with more years of experience in the production of maguey, secondly, they are the PEMs and thirdly the PBEPs which have less years of producing maguey and they are the youngest producers (average age of 47 years). In general, the variable years of production evidences the traditional part of the production of maguey for the elaboration of mezcal (Table 2), since when comparing the average 25.5 years that producers of the district of Miahuatlán have to produce, with those of other producers from other states, such as those from Zacatecas at age 15 (^{García and Macías, 2010}), highlight the experience and attachment of this agricultural activity in the study region. Therefore, we can observe an ingrained identity that is transmitted; through, of the generations (^{Bautista and Terán, 2008}).

The level of education of the PEM is higher than the PS and PBEP, since 23.1% of this group of producers have higher education at the secondary level, compared to 12.9% of the PBEP and only 5.7% of the PS. The results obtained contrast with what ^{Bautista and Ramírez (2008)} point out, regarding the average schooling of maguey producers, which was five years at primary level and an average age of 52 years.

The age and schooling of producers are factors that directly influence the way of cultivating and the availability of adopting new technologies (^{Borja-Bravo et al., 2016}). Education and age should be considered for the definition of differentiated strategies, since there are young producers (the PBEP stratum) with a good level of education, which may be more receptive to new strategies of technological change. A higher level of education allows access to updated information and innovation in technological aspects, a situation that coincides with that found by ^{Chilonda and Van Huylenbroeck (2001)}.

Availability of resources

The type of property that the producers have is mostly private property. The group of PEM is the one with the largest area of rainforest (8; p= 0), between 25.7 and 39.3% of the producers have technical assistance and more than 55.6% have maguey nurseries (Table 3).

Financing in the agricultural sector is a fundamental part of the production process, since it provides the necessary cash flow for the acquisition of working capital (^{Salinas et al., 2017}). According to ^{Bautista and Ramírez (2008)}, in a study carried out in Matatlán, more than half of the producers finance the production of maguey through remittances, a smaller proportion with own resources and scarcely 14% receive governmental support. The results obtained agree with this research, since only two strata indicated financing for production, PS (11.4%) and PBEP (10%) (Table 3).

Of the total of producers interviewed, only 15 reported participating in a producer organization: seven PS, five PBEP and three PEM. The type of support they receive for being in an organization focuses on technical assistance, financing and commercialization of the mezcal produced.

Employment in family units

The number of family employees and the months of family employment did not show a significant difference (p> 0.05); that is, the number and months of family work in the three strata is similar. The majority of maguey producers do not hire labor they use the work of the family (^{Bautista et al., 2015}). Of the total productive units, only 9.7% (PBEP), 22.2% (PS) and 28.6% (PEM) are dedicated exclusively to the production of maguey for sale as raw material and more than 70% of the three strata are intended, for the production of maguey for mezcal (Table 4).

In contrast, in a study conducted by ^{García-Salazar and Macías-Rodríguez (2010)} in a community in Zacatecas, only 27% of the producers are engaged in producing mezcal; that is, they are linked to the production chain. According to a study conducted by ^{Curiel-Avilés et al. (2016)} within the mezcal value chain, maguey producers only obtain 6% of the added value.

Agronomic management of the maguey productive system

The registration of maguey plantations is an activity that is carried out before the Mexican Council of the mezcal, in the study it was identified that less than 15.4% of the producers carry out this activity (6.1%, 15.4% and 10% of PS, PBEP and PEM, respectively). According to ^{Bautista and Terán (2008)}, producers cannot access the certification processes due to lack of economic resources, which limits their negotiation power against the industrial ones at the time of sale. The planting of maguey is carried out in association with other crops (usually maize and beans), in this sense, practically the total of the producers is associated (Table 5).

In this regard, ^{Sánchez (2005)} determined that the practice of planting maguey mezcalero associated with annual crops is carried out in this region with the aim of improving soil conditions, especially in the collection and retention of moisture, reduction of pests and diseases and improve the harvest of annual crops.

The variety of plant that is most used in the production of mezcal is the espadin agave (more than 50% of the producers use this variety). The use of sprat can possibly be explained by the fact that this species has a short cycle it has larger pineapples, so it is of higher yield, it provides the greatest volume of raw material for the elaboration of mezcal and it is easy for the reproduction of plant (^{Mariles-Flores et al., 2016}). However, they use other species such as mother cuixe, tobala, tepextate, bicuixe, cenizo and arruqueño and mixtures of some of these types of maguey, almost always with sprat.

More than 38.5% of the producers use machinery to prepare the land, but it is the PBEPs who use the machinery the most. This result contrasts with that found by ^{Bautista and Ramírez (2008)}, who point out that most of the maguey production units do not have agricultural machinery particularly tractor, due to the lack of economic resources or the adverse conditions of the land. Weed control is mostly carried out manually this can be explained given that maguey plantations are established in soils with a minimum arable layer, which limits the growth of other types of plants (^{Bautista and Smit, 2012}).

Harvest

The producers of low productive scale (PBEP) are those that have a higher average amount of wages for the harvest (5; p= 0). Regarding the number of pineapples produced and the average weight, there was no significant difference (p> 0.05) in the three producer strata, which may indicate a similar technological management. An investigation carried out in four localities of the state of Oaxaca, identified that the espadin plants (Agave angustifolia Haw.) Harvested in the communities of San Antonino Castillo Velasco, Soledad Salinas and Xitlapehua, had a great variation in the size of their pineapples, with fluctuations in values of fresh weight found from 31 to 133 kg and with an average weight of 80.87 kg (^{Cruz et al., 2013}).

This characteristic can affect the planting of sprat by producers. ^{Espinosa et al. (2017)} they point out that the small producers of mezcal have endured as economic units because of the family sense that characterizes them since many times the members of the family do not receive an income, because they are not considered as employees, which causes the costs regarding labor in the production of mezcal are low or non-existent (Table 6).

The production of maguey is integrated in the three groups, since 69.4 and 76.7% of the producers of the three strata use the pineapple for the production of mezcal. These results confirm that mezcal production is carried out by small producers who have a traditional knowledge that they maintain and is reflected in the mezcal produced by each of these small family units.