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Codifying Marginality: The Evolution of Mexican Agricultural Policy and its Impact on the Peasantry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Marilyn Gates
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Extract

Mexican agrarian philosophy has been characterised by remarkable consistency over the 70 years since the Revolution despite drastic changes in the overall economic context. The symbols of Revolutionary reform persist untarnished – ‘land and liberty’, Zapata and the ejido, an unique form of peasant land tenure. ‘El agro’ and agrarian policy remain a highly sensitive area shrouded in the mystique of past social struggles, so that the legacy of previous development decisions tightly constrains present-day options.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , November 1988 , pp. 277 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

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14 Ibid., p. 62.

15 Centra de Investigaciones Agrarias, El Cultivo del Maíz en México (México, D. F., 1980).Google Scholar Maize began to lose ground in cultivated area after 1967 when it occupied 51% of the total. In 1979 it covered only 37% of the extension, an all-time low (Barkin, and Suárez, , El Fin de la Autosuficiencia…, p. 58Google Scholar). Prices are controlled by La Compañia Nacional de Subsistencias Populares (CONASUPO, the state marketing and price support agency), which froze guaranteed prices from 1963–72, while the growers' real income declined 14%, an obvious disincentive to production, although an ongoing subsidy to urban consumers (Centra de Investigaciones Agrarias, El cultivo…, p. 66Google Scholar). However, substantial increases in the guaranteed price after 1972 did not result in significant production increments, partly due to rising production costs and deteriorating terms of trade internationally, the high natural hazards of rainfed agriculture, the primitive technology employed and the high degree of family consumption by producers in the subsistence sector (Ibid., p. 67). Furthermore, research into improved varieties of maize has been hampered by the lack of adaptability of the crop to the wide variety of growing conditions in Mexico (Walsh, , ‘Mexican Agriculture…’, p. 825Google Scholar).

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18 During the last months of his presidency, Echevarría expropriated sizeable hectarages from large estates in Sonora and Sinaloa, many belonging to descendants of notable revolutionary politicians and military heroes and hurriedly turned the lands over to peasant invaders, in many cases before the necessary legal procedures were formally concluded. The next president, López Portillo, was forced into an extended legal battle over the legitimacy of these expropriations by the powerful interest groups affected, resulting in dispossession for many campesinos and extensive indemnification payments for landlords. See Bartra, Roger, Campesinado y Poder Político en México (México, D. F., 1982), pp. 58–60.Google Scholar

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22 Ley Federal de Reforma Agraria (México, D. F., 1971).Google Scholar The agrarian code stipulates that ejidatarios must work the land personally, perform collective labour obligations, derive limited income only from non-agricultural pursuits, cannot sell or alienate ejidal lands in any way and must not possess other landholdings equal to or greater than the ejidal allocation. If paid labour is hired on ejidal lands, the fruits of such labour are to accrue to those workers. In practice, violations of the code are widespread, particularly in large-scale development projects heavily oriented to agribusiness where the rural proletarianisation process is most advanced.

23 In the Chontalpa, surrogate labour is hired from the poorer peasants within the development zone, or from the growing numbers of migrants from other parts of Mexico who have constructed shanty towns called ‘belts of misery’ around the project settlements. At Edzna, resettled ejidatarios primarily from central and northern Mexico hire the local Maya and recently relocated Guatemalan refugees from a near-by camp. In both cases, payment of sub-minimum wages is the norm.

24 Interview with an ejidatario from poblado 28, Plan Chontalpa, November 1981.

25 Interview with an ejidatario from the town of Bonfil, Edzna project, October 1985.

26 Gates, M. and Gates, G., ‘Proyectismo: The Ethics of Organized Change’, Antipode, vol. 8, no. 3 (1976), pp. 72–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Street, ‘Mexico's Economic Development…’, p. 375.

28 Ibid. See also ‘Mexico: Out of the Sun’, The Economist, (5 Sept. 1987), pp. 3–21.

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30 Centro de Investigaciones Agrarias, El Cultivo del Maíz, p. 153.

31 Street, ‘Mexico's Economic Development…’, p. 375.

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36 Bailey, , ‘Agrarian Reform…’, pp. 358–9.Google Scholar

37 Grayson, , ‘Oil and Politics…’, p. 379.Google Scholar

38 In 1980 food purchases from the United States amounted to US$2 billion, more than double the 1979 figure; see Street, ‘Mexico's Economic Development…’, p. 375. Meanwhile, domestic per capita consumption of maize declined; see Redclift, Michael, ‘Agrarian Populism in Mexico: The “Via Campesina”’, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 7, no. 4 (July 1980), pp. 492–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 The Economist, 5 Sept 1987, p. 7. It is significant that one-third of this debt was contracted in 1981, as ‘panic borrowing’ intended to shore up the economy against the effects of a softening world oil price, declining revenues, high interest rates abroad, world recession and rising inflation domestically. Nevertheless, capital flight accelerated.

40 Grayson, , ‘Oil and Politics…’, p. 379.Google Scholar

41 Bizarro, , ‘Mexico's Poor’, p. 375.Google Scholar

42 Price guarantees were raised 88% for corn, 53% for wheat and 88% for beans from 1979–81. BANRURAL credit was increased 40% from 1979–80 (Bailey, , ‘Agrarian Reform…’, p. 359Google Scholar).

43 Barkin, and Suárez, , El Fin de la Autosuficiencia…, pp. 164–165.Google Scholar COPLAMAR is another umbrella agency set up in 1976 to conduct an integrated attack on the various dimensions of rural poverty in the least developed areas. The aim is to reduce social and geographic isolation by providing clinics, potable water and feeder roads as well as increasing regular food supplies.

44 Street, ‘Mexico's Economic Development…’, p. 378.

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46 Wessman, James W., ‘The Agrarian Question in Mexico’, Latin American Research Review, vol. 19, no. 2 (1984), pp. 243–259.Google Scholar It is significant that President Lopez Portillo announced SAM in the same speech in which he postponed indefinitely Mexico's entry into GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades) and restricted oil production to a level below foreign demand (18 March 1980). SAM, then, formed part of an overall more nationalistic and protectionist policy with respect to control of domestic resources and resistance to import dependency (Bailey, ‘Agrarian Reform…’, p. 359). It is also noteworthy that Lopez Portillo's speech was delivered on the anniversary of Cárdenas' expropriation of foreign oil companies in 1938, still celebrated in Mexico as ‘Petroleum Day’.

47 Bailey, , ‘Agrarian Reform…’, p. 360.Google Scholar

48 Ley de Fomento Agropecuario, in Ley Federal de Keforma Agraria (México, D. F., 1981), pp. 410–11.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., pp. 403–4.

50 Ibid., pp. 395–9.

51 Bailey, , ‘Agrarian Reform…’, p. 360.Google Scholar

52 Ibid.

53 Wessman, , ‘The Agrarian Question…’, p. 259.Google Scholar

54 Tribuna de Campecbe (26 January 1982).

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 Grindle, Merilee S., ‘Rhetoric, Reality and Self-Sufficiency: Recent Initiatives in Mexican Rural Development’, Journal of Developing Areas, vol. 19 (01 1985), pp. 171–184.Google Scholar

58 Ibid.

59 Walsh, , ‘Mexican Agriculture…’, p. 826.Google Scholar

60 Bailey, , ‘Agrarian Reform…’, p. 392.Google Scholar

61 After the anticipated decline in economic growth in 1983, when real GDP contracted by 5.3% (The Economist, 5 Sept. 1987, p. 8), the economy grew unexpectedly fast in 1984 with a 3.5% increase in GDP (Ibid.), and in the first part of 1985, largely due to the concentration of investment in a few economic sectors, such as the automotive and construction industries, while other sectors remained sluggish. The economy was unprepared for such rapid expansion – ‘the economy simply overheated, fueling inflation and driving up the imports bill’ (Latin American Weekly Report, 30 Aug. 198;, p. 2). Average real GNP growth from the end of 1982 to the end of 1987 will be less than 1% (The Economist, 5 Sept. 1987, p. 8).

62 Oil barrel prices for Maya-Isthmus crude dropped from US$26.70 a barrel in February 1985 to US$14.30 a year later, declining still further to US$8.60 by July 1986 (The Economist, 5 Sept. 1987, p. 8). Thus, whereas oil had accounted for more than one-third of public sector revenues in 1964, only one-quarter was contributed in 1986 (Ibid.), or a US$8.5 billion shortfall (Wall Street Journal, 5 June 1987).

63 Ibid. Between 1978 and November 1987 inflation multiplied 95 times while minimum wages multiplied 54 times (Excelsior, 27 Jan. 1988). In December 1987 the government co-signed the Pacto de Solidaridad Económico (Economic Solidarity Pact) with leaders from the organised labour, peasant and private business sectors in an attempt to combat inflation through price and wage controls. Over 80 household items in the ‘basic food basket’ are regulated. A second stage agreement in March 1988 froze controlled prices and limited wage increases to 3% (Excelsior, 1 March 1988). While preliminary indications are that the Pact has made some headway in controlling inflation, the gap between real wages and basic commodity prices continues to widen. Minimum wages currently start as little more than US$3/daily, less than the price of a kilo of cheap beef.

64 Latin American Weekly Report (13 Sept. 1985), p. 2. Up to one million public sector employees may be affected (Excelsior, 21 Feb. 1988).

65 The Economist, 5 Sept. 1987, p. 9. The value of Mexico's exports from oil and mining was 78% in 1982, dropping to 38% in 1986 (provisional figures). All non-oil exports grew by about 40% in value between 198; and 1986. From September 1986 to September 1987 the greatest annual growth occurred in the iron and steel industry (33.5%), in the manufacturing of chemical products (18.7%) and transportation equipment (12.5%) (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Información, 1987).

66 Of 1,155 parastatal enterprises listed in 1982, less than 500 now remain, with a target reduction to 260 by November 1988 (Excelsior, 26 Feb. 1988). However, the original figure included many companies in which the state held only minimal interest or were insignificant subsidiaries (The Economist, 5 Sept. 1987, p. 11). A few major state companies have been closed, such as Fundidora, an obsolete steel plant in Monterrey, as part of the strategy of ‘industrial reconversion’ aiming at redirection of now limited state funds to the most efficient operations (Wall Street Journal, 14 May 1986). Unfortunately, the government is having difficulty finding buyers for the most inefficient operations such as Mexicana de Aviación.

67 Ibid., p. 9. By mid-1987, Mexico's foreign currency reserves were at an all-time high of US$13 billion after the finalisation of the new debt restructuring agreement with international and private creditor banks (Ibid., p. 10).

68 San Francisco Chronicle, 2 April 1986.

69 Wall Street Journal (1 Oct. 1986).

70 Ibid. Under pressure from the IMF, Mexico's creditor banks agreed to provide almost half of the bail-out in loans to be paid over 12 years with only interest payments due for the first five years, at a rate of only 13/16 of a percentage point over the benchmark rate, the London interbank offered rate. Furthermore, about US$44 billion of the Mexican government's debt, which has already been restructured over 14 years will be stretched further over 20 years (Ibid.). A short-term bridge loan of US$1.6 billion was also granted to tide the country over until actual disbursement of the medium-term package (Wall Street Journal, 18 Aug. 1986). Additional contingency loans will be available if the Mexican economy fails to achieve stipulated growth targets. Although these terms appear to be generous, Mexico had pressed for interest rates for the new loans to be set at the banks' cost of borrowing money, that is, with no profit to the banks (Manchester Guardian Weekly, 21 September 1986). President de la Madrid's failure to win special concessions represents another setback for the PRI party, which is already under considerable stress due to increasing public dissatisfaction with continuing stagnation, inflation and deteriorating infrastructure (Wall Street Journal, 2 October 1986).

71 The Mexican stock market has enjoyed an unprecedented boom since the summer of 1986, when the government sharply devalued the peso and tightened credit, stimulating investor confidence in the new strategy of economic growth through manufactured exports and thus slowing capital flight (Wall Street Journal, 22 October 1987). However, Mexican stock exchange booms have tended to correlate with serious economic recessions. Thus, the exchange flourished due to the existence of cash surplus, government monetary issues and pledges not to devalue the peso drastically. Consequently, the stock exchange boom reflects serious financial and inflationary imbalances rather than a healthy economic system. So, although the 30% plunge of the Mexican stock market on 19 and 20 October 1987 appeared, on the surface, to keep pace with the US market, the implications for Mexico are far more serious than a mere market ‘correction’ (Wall Street Journal, 23 October 1987).

72 Mexico City News, 8 March 1988. Overall, agricultural exports have been constrained by low prices on the international market, a decline in the numbers of foreign buyers (Mexico City News, 6 Dec. 1985) and infrastructural dislocations consequent on the 19 Sept. 1985 earthquake, although performance of the sector overall has been better than anticipated (Excelsior, 29 Jan. 1988).

73 Grindle, , ‘Rhetoric, Reality…’, p. 18.Google Scholar

74 For the first time, the PRI identified a slate of six presidential contenders and required them to address party leaders publicly, a radical departure from the traditional destape (unveiling) of a candidate selected in total secrecy by the outgoing president. It seems likely that this relative ‘opening’ of the political process is due less to recent gains by the opposition PAN party (Partido de Acción Nacional) than to the necessity for appeasing dissenters within its own ranks, who have been challenging both President de la Madrid's economic policies and PRI operating traditions. Specifically, it appears that President de la Madrid attempted to demystify the primary stage in order to ‘sell’ Mr Salinas, who lacks a populist base (The Economist, 10 October 1987).

75 The Mexican government maintains that the economic policies of opening the country to world markets, reducing state resource ownership and fiscal responsibility are ‘irreversible’ structural changes (The Economist, 5 Sept. 1987, p. 8). However, a modicum of popular support will be necessary to sustain these changes, which would seem to require some immediate positive results to bolster public confidence.

76 For example, in the southeastern humid tropical lowland state of Campeche, SARH (the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources) is currently retreating from large-scale mechanised rice production on new agricultural lands which were intended to be the new Mexican rice bowl, freeing existing rice lands in Sinaloa for more lucrative export crops. Repeated droughts have shown that the climate in central Campeche is unsuitable for non-irrigated rice and yields decreased alarmingly after the first two years of production as soil fertility declined, compounded by infestations of Johnson grass brought in with government-issued rice seed.

77 Warman, Arturo, ‘Frente a la Crisis: Política Agraria o Polí;tica Agrícola?, Comercio Exterior, 28, no. 6 (1984), pp. 681–7.Google Scholar

78 An extensive literature now exists on the deleterious results of the internationalisation of peripheral economies in terms of increasingly skewed export-dependent structures, highly vulnerable to world market fluctuations and plagued by dysfunctional specialisations, unequal development, income concentration and growing regional disparities as part of the expanding international division of labour. See, for example, Barkin, David, Desarrollo Regional y Reorganizatión Campesina: La Chontalpa como Reflejo del Problema Agropecuario Mexicano (México, D. F., 1978)Google Scholar, for an analysis of the shifting fortunes of a large-scale, state-directed integrated river basin development in the Mexican state of Tabasco, in response to the changing dictates of national and international capital.

79 See, for example, Esteva, Gustavo, La Batalla en el México Rural (México, D. F., 1980).Google Scholar

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