Soil Survey and its Relation with Land Type Classification and Cartography by Farmers

Abstract

Taking an empirical viewpoint from a farming perspective, there seem to be no names for soil profles as used in a soil survey. Rather, farmers refer to them geographically as types of land (clases de tierras). We believe that the concept of “land” is more general than the concept of “soil.” Te area of study chosen was the municipality of San Salvador Atenco in the State of Mexico (Estado de México), since previous work has been done here regarding rural soil classifcations by farmers. Moreover, results from a detailed soil survey were already available. Technically, an observer-participant approach was applied to gather information from farmers. Te cartographic material used were maps of ejido-internal parcels (planos de dotación parcelaria) of two of the six ejidos of San Salvador Atenco. Field work was carried out between February and May, 1987. Te results we obtained show that mapping of soils from a farmers' point of view, i.e. grouped as land types can be done quickly and easily and provides, moreover, additional information compared with a detailed soil survey.