Land Reform in Mexico: 1910–1980

200 Pages·1984·4.14 MB·English

by  Susan R. Walsh Sanderson, Charles Tilly and Edward Shorter (Auth.)

STUDIES IN SOCIAL DISCONTINUITY
Under the Consulting Editorship of:
CHARLES TILLY EDWARD SHORTER
University of Michigan University of Toronto
In preparation
David A. Levine (Ed.). Proletarianization and Family History
Michael Timberlake (Ed.). Urbanization in the World-Economy
Published
Susan Walsh Sanderson. Land Reform in Mexico: 1910-1980
Manuel Gottlieb. A Theory of Economic Systems
Robert Max Jackson. The Formation of Craft Labor Markets
Michael B. Katz. Poverty and Policy in American History
Arthur L. Stinchcombe. Economic Sociology
Jill S. Quadagno. Aging in Early Industrial Society: Work, Family, and Social
Policy in Nineteenth-Century England
/. Dennis Willigan and Katherine A. Lynch. Sources and Methods of Historical
Demography
Dietrich Gerhard. Old Europe: A Study of Continuity, 1000-1800
Charles Tilly. As Sociology Meets History
Maris A. Vinovskis. Fertility in Massachusetts from the Revolution to the Civil
War
Juan G. Espinosa and Andrew S. Zimbalist. Economic Democracy: Workers' Par-
ticipation in Chilean Industry 1970-1973: Updated Student Edition
Alejandro Portes and John Walton. Labor, Class, and the International System
James H. Mittelman. Underdevelopment and the Transition to Socialism:
Mozambique and Tanzania
John R. Gillis. Youth and History: Tradition and Change in European Age
Relations, 1770—Present: Expanded Student Edition
Samuel Kline Cohn, Jr. The Laboring Classes in Renaissance Florence
Richard C. Trexler. Public Life in Renaissance Florence
Paul Oquist. Violence, Conflict, and Politics in Colombia
Fred Weinstein. The Dynamics of Nazism: Leadership, Ideology, and the
Holocaust
The list of titles in this series continues at the end of this volume.
Land Reform
in Mexico: 1910-1980
Susan R. Walsh Sanderson
School of Urban and Public Affairs
Carnegie-Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1984
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
(Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers)
Orlando San Diego New York London
Toronto Montreal Sydney Tokyo
COPYRIGHT © 1984, BY ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED OR
TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC
OR MECHANICAL, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPY, RECORDING, OR ANY
INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, WITHOUT
PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER.
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
Orlando, Florida 32887
United Kingdom Edition published by
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD.
24/28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DX
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Sanderson, Susan R. Walsh.
Land reform in Mexico, 1910-1980·
(Studies in social discontinuity)
Bibliography: ρ·
Includes index.
1. Land reform—Mexico. I. Title.
HD1333.M6S26 1984 333.31Τ 72 83-25675
ISBN 0-12-618020-2 (alk. paper)
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
84 85 86 87 9 8 7 6 S 4 3 2 1
For Arthur, Angeline, and Andrew
List of Figures
Figure 1.1 Mexico's macroregions. 11
Figure 2.1 Percentage of rural population in free agricultural villages in
1910. 17
Figure 2.2 Landless laborers as a proportion of rural population in 1910. 20
Figure 4.1 Agrarian reform: the formal administrative structure. 53
Figure 4.2 Total and positive definitive resolutions. 59
Figure 4.3 Percentage positive definitive grants. 61
Figure 4.4 Percentage positive resolutions during the Cardenas
administration, 1935-1940. 64
Figure 4.5 Percentage positive resolutions during the Alernan
administration, 1947-1953. 65
Figure 4.6 Land reform in Veracruz. 68
Figure 4.7 Total and positive definitive grants in Veracruz. 69
Figure 5.1 Provisional land grants. 76
Figure 5.2 Percentage positive definitive land grants. 78
Figure 5.3 Land reform beneficiaries. 80
Figure 5.4 Number of peasants promised land (derechos a salvo). 85
Figure 5.5 Rural population density versus unfulfilled promises of land. 85
Figure 5.6 Percentage positive of total grants. 87
Figure 5.7 Land reform area as a proportion of the total area distributed. 90
Figure 5.8 Number of land reform beneficiaries as proportion of the total
number of beneficiaries, 1916-1976. 91
Figure 5.9 Quality of land distributed. 92
xi
xii List of Figures
Figure 5.10 Quality of land index. 94
Figure 5.11 Quality of land versus total land area. 96
Figure 5.12 Percentage quality of land granted. 97
Figure 5.13 Ejidal land as a proportion of total state area. 102
Figure 6.1 Cumulative increase of irrigated farmland. 107
Figure 6.2 Irrigated land redistributed. 108
Figure 6.3 Agricultural credit to private farmers and to ejidatarios from
1943 to 1970. 112
Figure 6.4 Proportion of clients of the Ejidal Bank eligible to receive
agricultural credit from 1940 to 1970. 112
Figure 6.5 Proportion of all ejidatarios who have received credit from the
Ejidal Bank from 1940 to 1970. 113
Figure 6.6 Expenses and returns of the National Ejidal Credit Bank from
1935 to 1958. 114
Figure 6.7 Water level in Mexico's principal dams, 1978 to 1982. 127
Figure 7.1 Emigrants from Mexico to the United States. 134
Figure 7.2 Number of braceros working in the United States. 135
Figure 7.3 Hired farm workers in the United States. 136
Figure 7.4 Area of ejidal land expropriated from 1928 to 1976. 138
Figure 7.5 Land expropriated as proportion of total land granted. 139
Figure 7.6 U.S. unemployed as a percentage of the labor force. 142
Figure 7.7 Land reform beneficiaries, emigration, and U.S.
unemployment. 144
Figure 7.8 Linear systems model of U.S. immigration policy and Mexican
development policy. 145
Figure 7.9 Simulated behavior of linear systems model and observed data. 146
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Regional per Capita Agricultural Production 21
Table 2.2 Land Reform Thrust of the Revolutionary Movements 35
Table 3.1 Land Reform Decrees of the Principal Revolutionary Movements 40
Table 3.2 Federal Agrarian Legislation, 1915-1971 42
Table 3.3 Percentage of Communities Eligible for Land 45
Table 3.4 Number and Percentage of Communities Eligible Based on Size 46
Table 4.1 Area and Percentage of Land Distributed by 1940 64
Table 4.2 Number of Governors by Presidential Term: Veracruz 67
Table 5.1 Land Grants as Proportion of All Agrarian Actions 74
Table 5.2 Mean Expected Years for the Six Regions of Mexico 83
Table 5.3 Land Reform Beneficiaries 84
Table 5.4 Types of Land Grants 87
Table 5.5 Number and Proportion of Restitutions Granted, 1916-1976 88
Table 5.6 Number of Recipients of Restitutions of Land 89
Table 5.7 Regions and Types of Land 96
Table 5.8 Average Size of Plot per Ejidatario, 1957 98
Table 5.9 Land Reform Beneficiaries as a Proportion of Population
Economically Active in Agriculture 99
Table 5.10 Proportion of Total Land Granted of Agricultural Land
Cultivated in 1970 100
Table 6.1 Public Investment: Total and Share of Agriculture, by
Administration 109
Table 6.2 Rates of Return on Investment of the Ejidal Bank, 1936-1957 115
xiii
xiv List of Tables
Table 6.3 Federal Public Investment in Agriculture and Rural
Development, 1970-1979 118
Table 6.4 Mexican Agricultural Commodity Support Prices: Marketing
Years 1976-1977 through 1980-1981, and 1980-1981 as
Percentage of 1976-1977 122
Table 7.1 Agricultural Population Economically Active 141
Preface
This book examines the workings of the Mexican government by analyzing
actual policies, their implementation, and their outcomes in an important and
central sector of the Mexican economy, agriculture. It traces the pattern of
Mexican redistributive policy in agriculture over an extensive period of time—
from the Revolution of 1910 to the present—focusing on the causes and effects
of these policy shifts.
The book is unique in that it is based on a new and never previously analyzed
data source: 88,500 records of government responses to peasant petitions for land
collected from the Diario Oficial from 1916 to the present. Similar in scope to
James Wilkie's analysis of federal expenditures and Peter Smith's Labyrinths of
Power, the quality and uniqueness of the data analyzed are unparalleled in depth
and accuracy. Land reform in Mexico has taken place over a 65-year period.
During that time thousands of petitions for land have been resolved. Although
the Ministry of Agrarian Reform keeps careful records of the presidential resolu-
tions granting land, this documentation is massive and was not available in a
1
form suitable for analysis. However, a second, more easily used source was
made available to me. The data analyzed in this study are superior to previously
available data on land reform in Mexico. Although numerous books and articles
have been published that cite data on the amount and quality of land distributed,
all have been based on data of poor or uncertain quality.
'Petitions for land and subsequent decisions on those requests are stored in an archive in the
basement of the Ministry of Agrarian Reform in Mexico City. A file is kept on each village including
all correspondence, survey results, and other material pertaining to the petition and its resolutions.
XV
xvi Preface
Chapter 1 introduces the principal themes of the book. Chapter 2 relates
regional variations in the rural social structure of the late nineteenth century to
the history of Mexico's unique agricultural policy. Agricultural policy and mod-
ernization strategy have resulted in fundamental shifts in the pattern of agri-
cultural production and rural class relations. The socioeconomic impacts of these
changes on the rural population in different regions of the country are examined
in Chapter 3, focusing on policy shifts reflected in agrarian legislation by presi-
dential period. The politics of land reform and its linkages to local, state, and
national administrations are analyzed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 traces the spatial
and temporal dynamics of land redistribution in Mexico over the 60-year history
of the reform. In Chapter 6 the pattern of agricultural credit and productivity is
analyzed. Historically, Mexican agricultural policy, U.S. economic conditions,
and U.S. immigration policy have all affected the pattern of Mexican migration
to the United States; Chapter 7 analyzes this relationship. Changes in Mexican
agricultural and industrial policy and development strategies have had an impact
on the rate of Mexican migration to the United States. Chapter 8 concludes this
study and speculates on the future of agricultural policy in Mexico during the
1980s.
This volume was written for two principal audiences: scholars and students
with a general interest in Mexican politics, and students of land reform in a
comparative context. Although the book makes use of analytical techniques
designed to compress massive amounts of quantitative data, much of the detailed
methodological discussion is relegated to appendixes. Thus the text can be read-
ily understood by upper-level undergraduate students.