Green Revolution in Mexico

1. What is the green revolution?

see Green Revolution definitions

2. The green revolution in a social frame: Antonio y su rancho

a. Government policy, Crony capitalism, patronage

b. Wage labor on peasant plots

i. local poor donπt get land, but work cheaply

ii. functional dualism: rich/poor interdependency in Mexican agrarian capitalism

c. Agricultural inputs: Emilio Rico and the Fertimex distribution scam

d. Crop insurance scam: the Mariachi miracle

3. Adapting the GR to peasant agriculture

CIMMYT (International Center for Corn and Wheat Improvement), Chapingo and Rockefeller: exporting the US model to the third world in the 1960s

a. CIMMYT
http://www.cimmyt.cgiar.org/Research/maize/index.htm

i. Rockefeller Centers: CGIAR

ii. Overpopulation discourse

iii. only technologically-enhanced agro-capitalism can save the world!

b. Plan Puebla:

i. Hybrid (modern variety) corn

ii. fertilizer

iii. Herbicides/pesticides

c. SAM: El Systema Mexicano Alimentario

i. 1980-82: 3.8 billion in food crop support subsidies to 'basic grains' producers

ii. SAM II (Son of SAM):
agro-capitalists get feed crops included. Subsidies to soya, barley (beer) etc.

iii. August 1982 oil price collapse, subsidies ended.

d. SAM Outcomes:

1. Price supports work: vast increase in corn production, Mexican food self-sufficiency obtained

2. Agro-Capitalist interests are very powerful and capable of turning agricultural programs in their favor and away from poorer farmers

3. Urban Working Class meat consumption is more political important than rural food production

INMECAFE and Cash Crop Parastatals

4. Until late 1980's, the Mexican government had parastatals, or marketing boards that bought and sold specific export crops (Coffee, palm, cocoa, sugar)

5. In 1988-89 these finally were abandoned, sending coffee and other export markets into difficulty:
Coyote merchants were to take over

6. Peasant producers reacted, creating their own peasant organizations, e.g., the Oaxacan state coordinator of peasant coffee producers, and got access to means of production including trucks, warehouses and milling plants

7. Presently these organizations are going organic, on the one hand, and trying to modernize their production machinery on the other