8. Mexico

Photo:
Maria Luisa Mendonça
In
1991, President Carlos Salinas announced that he would amend
Article 27 of the 1917 revolutionary constitution of Mexico.
Article 27 implemented agrarian reform: it guaranteed the
right to land for all peasants, decreed the expropriation
of large estates and the redistribution of land not as individual
plots, but as communally held ejidos.1 The modification of
article 27 had major effects on ejido and other communal land
in that it implied the possibility of dividing the ejido into
small private properties, and declared the end of further
land redistribution.
Historical
Overview
The
struggle for land has always been a central goal of social
movements throughout Mexican history. The key demands of the
1910 revolution were that land, forest and water resources
be expropriated from the large landowners, to provide landless
peasants with land to establish ejidos and agrarian colonies.
The post revolutionary government conceived the creation of
ejidos as a form of organization for production, as a body
for the political representation of peasants, and as an instrument
of political control.
Between
1915 and 1934, six presidential administrations redistributed
10 million hectares, while President Cardenas in just 6 years
(1934-1940) gave away almost 19 million hectares to 729,000
ejidatarios.
Beginning in the Cardenas administration, a new Agrarian Code
established the legal means by which landless hacienda workers
(peones) could become landowners. Under Cardenas' rapid land
distribution, the ejido finally became a permanent form of
land tenure in the countryside.
Between
1940 and 1958 there was a period known as the contrareforma
(counter-reform) that attempted to dismantle the agrarian
legacy of Cardenas. Agrarian policies were modified so that
the best lands were allocated to medium and large farmers,
and the ceiling size for small farms was increased to 100
hectares of fertile land, or its equivalent in areas of poor
quality land.
Since
1970, agricultural self-sufficiency based on traditional peasant
production practices (use of native seeds, biological pest
control, organic fertilizers, animal traction, and intercropping)
has been steadily degraded by a truncated process of technological
modernization initiated by the government organizations for
research and extension in agriculture.
Under
Presidents López Portillo (1976-1982) and De la Madrid
(1982-1988), the government once again made changes similar
to the contrareforma of the 40s and 50s, as it sought to replace
agrarian reform with policies designed to increase productivity.
Small farmers were set aside while large-scale agriculture
and livestock operators received most of the subsidies, investment
and financial assistance.
After the 1980s there was no longer any significant money
made available for subsidies for the rural sector. Mexico
began to invest in other parts of its economy in order to
be globally competitive. The economy was transformed by structural
adjustments that were accompanied by an emphasis on promoting
foreign investment in agriculture. The Mexican government
did not pursue a policy of food sovereignty, rather they saw
small scale grain production as unprofitable and something
that would not attract investment. As a reflection of this,
from 1988 on, the source of credit to agriculture shifted
from state development banks like Banrural to commercial banks.
After
more than six decades of Mexico's agrarian reform, its principal
results were that small farmers intensified their production
and got access to markets, so they could maintain their incomes
while cultivating fewer hectares; it kept people in rural
areas who otherwise might have joined the masses of the unemployed
in the cities; it deterred rural unrest while the economy
developed; and it allowed its beneficiaries to become the
major producers of staple foods in the country. However it
failed in that some marginal lands that should have been conserved,
restored, or preserved were put at risk; and the slow provision
of titles and late and inadequate input supply, credit, and
technical assistance left out many beneficiaries and thus
the reform fell well short of its economic production potential.
In addition, some large landlords were untouched by land reform
because of political connections or subterfuge, giving an
undercurrent of unfairness to the process; land delivery was
used as a form of political patronage, often functioning to
keep peasants politically repressed and "in their place;
and many peasants never received land at all.
Neoliberalism
in the Countryside
The
elimination of subsidies and the privatization or complete
disappearance of many public services and agencies that attended
to the rural sector, affected access to credit, insurance,
markets, modernizations, seeds, water, technical assistance
and basic infrastructure, while greatly increasing the cost
of inputs and remaining services.
The
abandonment of the peasant sector by the rural financial system
and the closing down of the National Crop and Livestock Insurance
Agency were part of the dismantling of the rural sector. The
total amount of credit available to agriculture was cut back
drastically, and most of what was left was redirected to large
farmers. The weakening and retreat of public sector institutions
was not followed by the opening of private bank branches in
rural communities. In addition, the public and private sectors
both failed miserably by not providing any source of long-term
investment capital in "competitive technologies."
In 1992, the amendment to Article 27 was approved by 388 votes
in favor and 45 against. The stated objectives of the reform
of the constitution were to slow down the growing phenomenon
of minifundio (proliferation of very small farms) in the countryside,
promoting investment to increase production, and was supposed
to be consistent with Salina's promise to generate more employment
and to create labor organizations for agricultural workers.
This
amendment came as part of a package of neoliberal reforms
that included the creation of the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico, and the United States;
the privatization of state enterprises; the deregulation of
agricultural markets; and the privatization of irrigation
water management.
Critics
of the reform of Article 27 argue that the main consequences
have been the breakdown of the rural social contract, the
privatization of the ejido, the destruction of indigenous
agrarian communities, the creation of new ways to concentrate
land holdings, and the expulsion of millions of rural families
from the countryside to the cities.
The
most common forms of exchange of land in Mexico's countryside
used to be leasing, renting, mortgaging, borrowing, and other
form of land division such as sharecropping. According to
various researchers, after the reform of Article 27 and with
the subsequent creation of the Program to Certify Agrarian
Rights and Land Titles (PROCEDE0, the land market has grown
specifically in the categories of buying and selling, and
renting land, among members of rural communities and with
outsiders. They note that population increase and age distribution
are related to the politization of land transactions, and
to the increase of minifundio. The end of land redistribution
closed off an essential way to access land, which is now only
available by inheritance, purchase, renting, or borrowing.
In the case of the poor, it is now only possible through inheritance.
Where land markets now prevail, a local or foreign minority
elite controls the best ejido land or privatizes communal
land, while a growing number of campesinos are losing their
access to land.
With
the reform, the ejido sector suffered a swift decline in the
technification of production - except with respect to the
use of improved seed - as in the case of sorghum. The few
new technological investments are destined to the large producers.
As for the rural poor, "
the much touted globalization
of the market has not obliterated rural culture, but it has
had an impact. Mexico's rural poor have been left behind technologically,
and their traditional agricultural practices, which sufficed
in the past, have now been distorted and discredited by the
new orthodoxy, resulting in an inevitable deterioration of
the environment and a decline in the quality of rural life,"
said one critic.
In
1995, 73% of Mexico's population lived in urban areas. In
recent decades as much as 60% of urban growth has occurred
by means of the illegal alienation of ejido land. In 1995
the governmental program "100 Cities" announced
the urbanization of 120 thousand hectares of ejido land for
the expansion of the main cities. The ejido form of ownership
affects far more than rural Mexico, and given that half of
Mexico's communal land surrounds the nation's fastest growing
cities, the reform allows communal landholders to associate
themselves with private investors or to sell their land to
builders for housing development, sometimes becoming the victims
of urban growth that deprives the community of its land and
identity.
Popular
Mobilization
The
introduction of free market policies and the withdrawal of
lending from the rural sector provoked general discontent
among farmers. In July of 1990, the Movimiento de los 400
Pueblos [the Movement of 400 Peoples] marched in Poza Rica,
Veracruz, demanding the distribution of 80,000 hectares of
land, credit and technical assistance; and in September 1990
some 10,000 peasants from the Northeast, the Bajio and the
South marched to Mexico City demanding, among other things,
the modification of agrarian policy. The main complaint from
the countryside was that the proposal to amend article 27
came from the top. Behind the amendment were interests of
the World Bank, the United States government, conservative
Mexican business consortia, and the neoliberal technocracy
in the Trade Ministry.
After
the Mexican revolution, social movements were led by the poor
campesinos of the ejido sector. At the beginning the main
demand was for land, but at various moment production issues
took the front seat. In the 1960s the student movement and
the rise of liberation theology clearly influenced the peasant
movements. Under President López Portillo (1976-1982),
repression of land struggles became more common, movements
began to see the need for unity at the regional and national
level, and production-related demands seemed to offer a more
viable basis for peasant mobilization.
In
1991, preceding the amendment of Article 27, intense discussions
took place within the government between those in favor of
privatization and those who were pro-ejido. Meanwhile in the
peasant movement there were three main positions: one in favor
of the modification, with minor changes to the official proposal,
one strongly against the amendment, and an intermediary position.
The
main peasant alternative to the amendment of Article 27 was
the continuance of the social contract of 1917, and its renovation
through a clear policy to stimulate agriculture, and to support
rural production and food self-sufficiency, with guarantees
to ensure peasant involvement in administrative and decision-making
mechanisms, as well as strengthening and preserving the autonomy
of peasant organizations.
The
future of rural Mexico hangs in the balance today, more than
ten years after the modification of Article 27 and after ten
years of NAFTA. Over that time medium and small Mexican farmers
have not been able to compete with subsidized producers in
the United States, and Mexican Peasant organizations have
organized themselves in a broader movement call El Campo No
Aguanta Más ["The Countryside Can't Take Any More
of This!"), which brings together a dozen national farmer
and peasant organizations.
The
peasant organizations are calling for an immediate moratorium
on the agricultural chapter of NAFTA, the implementation of
new social programs, a true financial reform in the rural
sector, empowering of the Congress to make modifications in
the rural sector budget, secure access to safe and healthy
food of good quality for all Mexicans - produced by Mexican
farmers, and the full recognition of the culture and rights
of indigenous peoples.
Text
based on TANAKA, Laura Saldívar - Mexico´s land
reform: from ejido to privatization
9.
South Africa
10.
Thailand
11.
Zimbabwe
12.
Positions of Via Campesina
13.
Bibliography
14.
Table of Contents
|