Estructura y tipología de las unidades de producción ovinas en el centro de México

In Mexico, there is scarce information about sheep production in zones of temperate climate, despite representing an important means of livelihood for the rural population. This study had the objective of analyzing the structure of the production systems and to typify the sheep production units of the temperate region of the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala. The data were collected through interviews and direct observation, recording in a questionnaire the social and technical-economic variables from a statistical sample of 221 sheep producers. The structure of the production system was determined with factorial analysis. The typologies of the sheep production units were grouped with cluster analysis. The factorial analysis identified the size of the flock, the production of lambs, and the purchase and production of grains and fodders as the variables that explained the highest variance in the production units. Three types of production units groups were identified: family subsistence (60.6 %), sheep-cereal association (32.1 %) and mountainous extensive (7.3 %). In the study region, the production of sheep depends on the size of the flock, the production and availability of native fodder, and the availability of workforce to generate economic income.