Jungle Laboratories by Soto Laveaga

Laveaga, Gabriela Soto Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009.

Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill by Gabriela Sota Laveaga traces the political, economic, and scientific development of the global barbasco industry from its 1950s-boom years, to the decline in the latter part of the twentieth century. A wild yam that invasively grows in rural areas of southern Mexico, barbasco and its extract, diosgenin, made possible the mass production of steroid hormones like progesterone and cortisone, and leading to the manufacture of oral contraceptives. Despite their elite knowledge of and manual labor harvesting the root, it was many years before Mexican peasants understood the financial and scientific value of barbasco. The scientific community’s reliance on rural Mexican’s knowledge upended a social hierarchy that had been in place for hundreds of years. Eventually rural Mexicans were able to utilize their scientific knowledge to mediate with transnational pharmaceutical companies, to approach the Mexican government for terms, and to alter how they were regarded by urban Mexicans.

A commodity chain analysis is a way of isolating and identifying aspects of historical change along the route that the commodity takes from production to consumption. In the case of barbasco, the commodity chain begins when Mexican peasants harvest the barbasco root from southern Mexico. Initially, picking the barbasco root was a form of ancillary income for the peasants. If peasants happened to see barbasco growing on their way home then they would pick it up. However, as the demand for barbasco grew, up to 25,000 families or 100,000 individuals would make a living by harvesting the barbasco root. The jungle conditions where barbasco grew were hazardous. Barbasco pickers reported venomous snakes and swarms of insects, not to mention the hot, tropical environment. In addition, the dangers of machetes were notorious, as the long, sharp knives were used constantly to clear the dense jungle flora.

Once picked and removed from the jungle, the commodity chain of barbasco moved to collection sites where the root would undergo basic chemical changes by fermentation and drying. The resulting barbasco flour had to be spread out over concrete slabs and dried by the sun. The flour also needed to be agitated to ensure consistent drying. Once dried, the barbasco flour was packed and shipped to laboratories in other parts of Mexico, the United States, and Europe.

Laboratories and scientists continued the chemical processes to yield diosgenin. Diosgenin is the precursor of steroid hormones like progesterone and cortisone. Progesterone was the original basis for oral contraceptives, which put Mexico on the map in the steroid hormone industry. Employed by Syntex, one Mexico’s leading pharmaceutical companies, Luis Ernesto Miramontes was able to synthesize an orally efficient progesterone contraceptive. The Pill revolutionized population control by allowing female reproductive systems to avoid contraception. The rural Mexican peasants had no idea that the barbasco they picked and sold to middlemen was turned into a pill used globally by millions of women.

The abundant availability of raw barbasco in Mexico made it possible for Mexican chemists and technicians to generate original and significant scientific research. Studying a plant that was innately Mexican inspired a sense of nationalism. Mexico created an entire industry around barbasco, with laboratories and other facilities created specifically for steroid hormone use. Mexican scientific nationalism can also be seen at the lowest rung of barbasco’s commodity chain. Barbasco pickers and campesinos were all proud of barbasco and their work, even when they did not understand why international companies demanded the weed. Fidel Santiago Hernández proudly described how he had been hired as a “chemist” at a barbasco processing plant. Many Mexicans viewed employment in the barbasco industry as a secure, dignified, and esteemed occupation.

            Amidst the barbasco boom, the United States as a scientific and pharmacological stronghold had to contend with Mexico and its emerging competence in science, as well as the only place where barbasco proliferated. Even when Syntex was sold to a United States company, the barbasco root was still grown in Mexico and, increasingly, regulated by the Mexican government. United States’ expansionism became a question of legal matters, like patents, and not territory. Mexican presidents Miguel Alemán and Adolfo Ruiz Cortines both issued protectionist measures and legislation to protect the economy surrounding barbasco. Foreign demand for barbasco permits ushered in the Mexican government’s domestic laboratory, Farquinal, responsible for the manufacture of diosgenin.

Several factors surrounding barbasco changed throughout its medicinal demand and subsequent decline including agriculture and economics. With regards to agriculture, in the beginning of the barbasco boom peasants left a part of the root in the ground for regeneration. Combined with the slash and burn agricultural technique, barbasco continued to flourish. However, towards the end of the barbasco boom fewer pickers would leave even the smallest pieces of the root in the ground. Many in Mexico wondered if the barbasco would last. The Commission for the Study of the Ecology of Dioscoreas was a research group funded by transnational pharmaceutical companies in collaboration with the Mexican government and Mexican scientists to regulate and obtain information on barbasco and its ecology. Foreign companies understood the importance of researching barbasco in order to ensure the continued supply of the scientific- and financially-valuable raw material. This led to the change in economics by Mexico establishing Proquivemex, the parastatal company intended to challenge transnational pharmaceutical companies and protect campesinos. Proquivemex was established in 1975 during the administration of populist president Luis Echeverría Álvarez.

Echeverría had high hopes for Proquivemex. Ideally Proquivemex and its jungle laboratories would serve as the link between Mexican peasants who harvested barbasco and the transnational pharmaceutical companies who needed diosgenin. Within ten years, Echeverría planned to produce medicines at a fair price for all Mexican citizens. Another goal was that the middlemen of the barbasco industry would one day have a significant role in the company and control of barbasco production. However, when Echeverría left office, Proquivemex was beset with a funding crisis and dwindling interest, especially from the new administration. The jungle laboratories were abandoned and the barbasco industry in Mexico dried up.

Diosgenin-filled arbasco still grows in the jungle region of southern Mexico and the legacy of the barbasco boom years still lives on. Barbasco created the development of the steroid hormone industry and paved the way for Mexico to become a major factor in the global pharmaceutical industry. However, the failures of Echeverría’s populist regime and the social issues surrounding Mexican peasants and harvesting barbasco, as well as new scientific sources of steroid hormones, led to the weed’s subsequent medicinal decline and demand.