Perhaps peasant producers are not as efficient as rural entrepreneurs when measured by the standards of private business, but without a doubt they are infinitely more efficient if we consider social, cultural, and environmental impacts, categories where agribusiness clearly flunks the test of sustainability.
Armando Bartra, 2 0 0 4247
Through the 1970s, rural poverty was at least mitigated by government intervention in the rural economy. The government-owned National Bank of Rural Credit (Banrural) supplied credit at subsidized prices. Specialized government agencies such as INMECAFE and TABAMEX purchased coffee and tobacco at guaranteed prices. There were also subsidies for agricultural inputs such as electricity, fuel, and fertilizer. The government grain agency, CONASUPO, became the third largest enterprise in Mexico. It bought and sold twelve different grains, operated a retail chain with more than 20,000 outlets, and maintained a network of grain silos and food-processing plants. Such efforts attempted to shield producers from the vagaries of the market and provide inexpensive food to the poor.248
While such government support did transfer wealth to small producers, it also created problems. Caciques and government bureaucrats would often gain control of credit allocation and use this control to their personal advantage. Credit from the Banrural came with so many restrictions concerning the type of crop and production techniques that producers were left with little decisionmaking power. The government role in peasants’ lives became so pervasive that cynics declared that peasants fought for “tierray libertad” (“land and liberty”) but instead received “tierra y el estado” (“land and the state”).249
The CNC entered the 1970s as a tightly controlled organization that transmitted government wishes to its members, thus lowering its legitimacy. Since the raison d’etre of the CNC was to obtain land for the landless, as land distribution wound down, it had to compete for influence and loyalty with other government agencies, landowners’ associations, and independent peasant groups. CNC leaders often collaborated with government and large landowners, even when such collaboration ran counter to the interests of CNC members.250
Several different government programs channeled resources to rural Mexico. Under Lopez Portillo (1976—1982), agricultural spending constituted 5.5 percent of the federal budget, compared
To only 2.5 percent under Di'az Ordaz (1964—1970). The best known program was the Mexican Food System (SAM), which benefited small producers with higher prices, subsidized inputs, crop insurance, and technical assistance. In 1981, Mexico produced a record 28.6 million tons of grain, and SAM was declared a success. Its being the most expensive grain in the world seemed of little importance. The high cost of grain production did become a concern after oil prices plunged at the end of Lopez Portillo’s term. When President De la Madrid took office in 1982, SAM was quietly forgotten.251
Given the emphasis on servicing the national debt, under President de la Madrid (1982—1988) there were sharp decreases in government intervention in the agricultural sector. This left small producers without crop insurance, credit, fertilizer subsidies, or marketing facilities. The government dismantled the guarantee prices of twelve food crops. Between 1981 and 1988, government investment in rural development declined from 2.4 percent of GDP to 0.2 percent.252
During the 1980s, decreased government support for rural Mexico led to widespread protest movements. Coercion against those opposing the PRI’s rural dominance increased as the incentives the party could offer declined. Challenges to the prevailing distribution of rural wealth were also repressed. More than 800 peasants, many of whom were members of organizations not affiliated with the PRI, were killed in land-related disputes between 1981 and 1987. Many others were imprisoned for political activity in support of landless groups.253
Institutional changes continued to impact rural Mexico through the 1990s. Salinas amended Article 27 of the constitution to end the land reform. Then, in 1994 the NAFTA allowed (after a grace period in some cases) the tariff-free importation of food from the United States. In 1998, the government dissolved CONASUPO, the system of state-run stores that had sold basic foods, such as tortillas and milk, at subsidized low prices. In 1999, the government ended its guarantee prices on corn and beans. This reflected its policy of letting Mexican food prices adjust to international levels, even if it forced some domestic producers out of business.254
Public investment in rural development declined 74.2 percent between 1991—1993 and 2000—2002. The remaining federal support was directed to farms, such as those producing fresh fruit and vegetables, that were competitive in the export market. Smaller producers on rain-fed land were considered as a social welfare concern rather than as an economic policy matter.255
Neoliberal policies have devastated small rural holdings by eliminating subsidies and pushing farmers, sink or swim, into global commodity markets dominated by First World agribusiness. Few producers can break into the export market—in addition to physical endowments, such as good land and water, it requires processing, storage, and transport facilities as well as sophisticated managerial skills. During the 1990s, the rapidly increasing dominance of retail food distribution by supermarkets such as Wal-Mart further marginalized small producers. Small farmers are generally unable to meet large retailers’ demands for uniform quality, reliable delivery, and large quantities.256
Population increase, a multiplicity of very small farms, soil degradation, declining government support, and competition from imports has left rural Mexico mired in endemic poverty. Roughly a quarter of Mexico’s population live in rural areas, but only contribute 5 percent of GDP. Only 38 percent of rural households own any land at all, and of those with land, more than two-thirds have less than five acres. Agricultural income is poorly distributed, as the 77 percent of farms relying on rainfall receive only 44 percent of agricultural income. Some 4 million rural residents are landless wage laborers, who usually work as migrants. In 2004, 56.9 percent of the rural population was living in poverty.257
NAFTA and neoliberal policies are frequently blamed for impoverishing Mexico’s rural population. That charge is unjust in that there was endemic rural poverty before neoliberal policies were adopted in the 1980s. What neoliberal policies failed to do was to provide rural residents either with sufficient income or with urban jobs to which they could move and thus escape poverty. In 2003, as economist Kirsten Appendini commented:
After more than a decade of reform. . . agricultural performance has not realized the expectations
Set by the neoliberal agenda of the administrations of Carlos Salinas de Gortari or Ernesto Zedillo;
Neither have peasants and the rural population in general seen any improvement in their
Livelihoods.258
Given rising population, declining farm income, and physical limitations (lack of access to water and good land), rural people increasingly turned to non-agricultural sources of income. As early as 1975 anthropologist Ralph Beals found that for rural Oaxacans “farming is neither their primary occupation nor is it the main source of income. . . Their ways of making a living hence are numerous and varied.” During the 1990s, as the government reduced its role in the agricultural economy and population continued to increase, reliance on sales of one’s crops continued to decline, and survival was based increasingly on consuming one’s own crop production, day labor, government subsidies, and remittances from relatives in the United States.259
One response to rural problems is out-migration. Such moves reflect the lack of job creation, the persistent poverty, and the fact that rural people are becoming increasingly aware that there are better alternatives. As anthropologist Pierre Beaucage noted, “After twenty-five years of intense exposure to modernity, nobody wants to return to the old days, where you worked from dawn to dusk and were happy to have enough corn to eat and a few pesos to spend at the fiesta.”260
Massive out-migration has had varied effects. In some cases, remittances sent by migrants have revitalized communities, providing sustenance for family members and permitting new construction, the opening of businesses, continued education, and the maintenance of traditional village festivals. However, increasingly emigration has simply hollowed out communities. Ventura Vega, of Huacao, Michoacan commented: “Just look in all the houses and you see that there’s no one. Once we had a group of musicians that performed in the plaza. Even they have gone. And now we are left with no music.” All of Vega’s eleven children and their families moved to California.261
The majority of those working in the United States continue to maintain ties to their community, either personally or through close relatives. However the ejido is no longer seen as the road to the future. Half the ejidatarios are over age fifty. Newly wed couples migrate out, and more children are being born or raised in the United States and do not speak Spanish well. Visits back to the sending community inevitably became less frequent and shorter.262
World History
