the end to food self-sufficiency in mexico

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1987 14: 271Latin American PerspectivesDavid Barkin

The End to Food Self-Sufficiency in Mexico

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271

The End to Food Self-Sufficiencyin Mexico

byDavid Barkin*

Mexico has ceased to be self-sufficient in food. Its tortillas are no

longer made from locally grown raw materials; it cannot supply all of itsdemand for meat and dairy products, or even animal feed. This crisishad its origins in economic policies of the 1960s and was exacerbated bya great drought in 1979 and 1980. In 1981, the Aztec rain god Tlaloccooperated; and the Sistema Alimentario Mexicano (Mexican FoodSystem, or SAM), a presidential initiative to lead the country back tothe road of food self-sufficiency, contributed to a temporary dramaticincrease in agricultural production and nutritional standards by raisingcrop prices and subsidizing production costs. But money and rain werenot enough to overcome the obstacles that provoked the crisis inagriculture, and the small landholders did not have the opportunity torebuild their communities and productive organizations before govern-ment budgets were eroded by inflation and falling petroleum prices.Despite an unprecedented series of abundant rains since then ( 1982 and1986 excepted), basic food production could not be sustained at itsprevious levels. The value of the country’s food imports exceeded itsagricultural exports from 1979 to 1985; even as the agricultural tradebalance went into surplus in 1986, the volume of maize importscontinued to be high (Figure 1).

This dependence on imports can no longer be considered the result ofan unfortunate conjuncture. Mexico has required substantial maizeimports for more than a decade despite the availability of the natural

*David Barkin is Professor of Economics at the Universidad Aut6noma Metropolitana-Unidad Xochimilco and Director of Research at the Centro de Ecodesarrollo. The firstdraft of this article, which summarizes the arguments and the data in a book published inSpanish with the same title, was written while the author was a visiting fellow at the Centerfor U.S.-Mexican studies at the University of California, San Diego. During the reviewprocess, helpful comments were received from Roger Bartra, Barry Carr, and NoraHamilton.

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 54, Vol. 14 No. 3, Summer 1987 271-297@ 1987 Latin American Perspective

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272

Figure 1: Imports: Maize and Wheat (as a proportion of production)

and human resources and technology needed to supply the country’sown needs. In the midst of a profound economic crisis of internationalscope, the old debates about the advisability of self-sufficiency are nolonger simply academic battlegrounds-the country is obliged to importbillions of dollars of food products it can not afford, food that could beproduced by small farmers on lands that presently stand idle. And yetthe magnitude of the political and social changes required to reverse thisdeficit is sufficient to discourage even the most enthusiastic of politicalreformers (Barkin and Sudrez, 1985).

The loss of food self-sufficiency, while a political and economic issuefor policymakers and editorialists, poses a basic problem of survival forfamilies and communities. Recognizing the high costs and physicaldifficulties of transport, together with the uncertainty that food wouldbe available for purchase elsewhere, they have traditionally organizedtheir own production of basic foodstuffs in a fundamental strategy forfamily and community security. The internationalization of agriculturemakes pursuit of this strategy increasingly difficult.



273

THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OFMEXICAN AGRICULTURE

Agricultural development proceeds through a complex interaction ofmarket pressures and government policy. Through the price system, themarket informs investors about the most profitable opportunities fornew production. Economic policy rearranges priorities by modifyingprices and profit rates in different activities: historically, governmentshave accorded priority to industrialization and export. In Mexico (aselsewhere) this bias precipitated the present problem of fooddependency.

Mexican agriculture has been strongly influenced by the rapid pace oftransformation of the whole society. Neither investors nor governmenthas displayed any concern for the destruction of traditional socialstructures and industries. In fact, policymakers often rejoice in the rapidpace with which they have &dquo;overcome&dquo; their traditional heritage.Growth has taken place in a permissive atmosphere in which governmentpolicy did not dictate where new investment should be placed, but rathercreated favorable conditions in which the market mandated the most

profitable sectors for growth. In agriculture, government expendituresand policy successfully created an environment within which manyindividual entrepreneurial decisions collectively determined the evolvingshape of agricultural production. Discrimination against traditionalfood producers is now widespread as technology and politics havecombined with market forces to privilege commercial farmers.

The most apparent productive determinants in agriculture are pricesignals in national markets. In Mexico, as in many other countries,however, international prices strongly influence local prices. Even whenthere is substantial state intervention, as in the grain markets, interna-tional prices sustain their influence over the level and direction ofchange of local prices.2 The productive determinants are global andexert an increasingly important influence on the functioning of domesticeconomies as developing countries attempt to raise their economicgrowth. But international prices, like national prices for grains andother commodities, are not blindly fixed in impersonal markets: they areinfluenced by political and economic struggles within the major grain-producing countries as well as by competition among them. The lowlevel of international grain prices reflects the declining power of the farmbloc in the United States, the need to maintain high levels of exports to



274

help finance growing American imports, and the unprecedented levelsof competition in international grain markets.

The theory of the internationalization of capital helps explain thisinteraction between the global economy and domestic economicchange. &dquo;Capitalism comes as a unifier which drags a-historical societies... on to the road of progress, i.e., into the historical arena. Once thatobstacle is removed the iron laws of evolution finally assume their globaland universal pace&dquo;(Shanin, 1983).3 The internationalization of capitalin Mexico is the process through which the national economy bothassimilates and adapts to international patterns of growth and transfor-mation to alter its economic structure.4 In practice, individual producersmake their investment and other allocative decisions on the basis ofworld market prices, attempting to expand in the most profitabledirections. Producers imitate products from advanced markets andinvent others to attempt to carve out advantageous niches in their ownmarkets; their plants replicate the techniques and innovations in placeelsewhere, and they transform their systems of labor control andproduction to emulate those of others. The self-employed artisan andthe small enterprise are replaced by large-scale wage-labor production,while new products make traditional ones obsolete. People are obligedto seek positions as wage laborers as their former sources of sustenancedisappear and their ability to supply their own needs erodes. The processeventually extends to the family structure itself, tying it ever more firmlyto the dictates of production, creating new consumption &dquo;needs&dquo; bymaking it more difficult to supply needs from the domestic economy(Barkin, 1985).

These market determinants are a universal part of the world capitalistmarket. As such, they are also constituent parts of the Mexicaneconomic system. Although they did not originate there, they havebecome firmly rooted in national territory. Of course, national differ-ences-resources and history-intervene to put their own distinctiveimprimatur on the process; but in the realm of economics, nationalboundaries have ceased to be barriers. For some time, the Mexicanleadership has accepted and stimulated this assimilation into theinternational market and imposed the global system of priorities on thecountry. These have influenced the allocation of resources and theformulation of policy.

The transformation process is accelerated by state intervention in themarket. The state uses its resources to attempt to reshape or to forge anew productive structure, and the complementary social and political



275

institutions it requires. Government encourages foreign investors tocollaborate with nationals to produce new goods and participate in thedevelopment of local capital markets. As new ventures are woven intoan increasingly complex web of productive relationships, the moderneconomy prospers. National development becomes international, andlocal economies part of the global market. But new rules are needed forproduction, for exchange. In the process, individual countries lose someof their capacity to place national needs above the demands of the worldeconomy. This interweaving of economic systems, which is an integralpart of the forging of a global system, makes it difficult to distinguishbetween the individual and the collective, between the national and theinternational. 5

In this reordering, the state is continually perfecting its ability tointervene; while generally accepting the guidelines of the global market,it modifies them for domestic political reasons by changing the relativeprices of some goods or altering priorities when it seems appropriate ornecessary. Such moments may arise with the increase in populardiscontent among workers or farmers, or for strategic reasons relatingto other internal problems. The SAM was one striking response to thesocial problems of poverty and unrest in rural Mexico and the foreignexchange burden of massive food imports.6 Exceptional programs suchas SAM, and others that benefit the majority directly, slow the pace ofeconomic growth. They are possible only because political pressuresoblige the government to effectuate constructive responses that partiallycompensate for the heavy social costs, such as the exacerbation ofpreexisting social and economic inequalities inherent in the overallprocess of economic growth.7

The incorporation of new countries and regions into industrialproduction and the growth of the labor force are characteristics of theinternationalization of capital. From this process, a new internationaldivision of labor (NIDL) emerges involving the massive incorporationof people into the wage-labor forced To supply them, society mustproduce their basic needs. As their isolation and independence havebeen destroyed, these groups of people become building blocks in a newsystem in which self-sufficiency appears to be an anathema. Butproducing goods for the mere survival of low wage earners is not asprofitable as producing for more affluent markets. Thus as people cometo depend on production by others, they become more vulnerable:unless it is profitable to sell to the workers, the goods will not beproduced. A contradiction arises because the swelling ranks of the



276

unemployed in most Third World countries allows employers to pay lowwages, making it difficult to sell consumer goods profitably to theworkers. Thus the internationalization of capital and the NIDL work atodds with the incessant search for profit (Barkin and Rozo, 1981). Theresulting difficulty of ensuring food self-sufficiency in a world whereunemployment and poorly paid workers coexist with profit maximizersis apparent (Barkin and Suirez, 1985).

THE EFFECT OF CAPITALIST EXPANSIONON FOOD SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Self-sufficiency cannot be attained simply by ensuring the availabilityof a given volume of material resources. A national capacity for self-sufficiency requires that the consumers also be the producers and callsfor the collaboration of organized social groups whose productiveactivity is well articulated. These groups must transcend the family: thecomplexity and scope of the tasks involved require and strengthen socialstructures that create reciprocal obligations and ties of mutual supportamong the several social groups in a community or nation.

The expansion of capitalism in Mexico has inexorably wroughthavoc on these social and material structures of self-sufficiency. But thisphenomenon is not unique to Mexico. The internationalization ofcapital, as we have characterized this complex process, is a generalizedphenomenon: it encompasses most nations that have not explicitlychosen to remove themselves from the market economy. It is not limitedto transforming the productive structure, or to destroying the physicaland social capacity to produce the basic goods required by the massesfor their survival. It also incorporates these people into a new set ofsocial relationships, mediated by money, which generally is transformedinto wages. As it extends to the most isolated corners of each country,the internationalization process wrests the small producers from theirsubsistence economy, thrusting them into a different world of wageearners and job seekers. But this new world is incapable of supplyingsufficient opportunities to fulfill the hopes and implied promises of itsfar-reaching claims: employment opportunities are limited and welfareprograms virtually nonexistent (Wolf, 1982).

Reformers clamoring for a new international order are not the onlyones who see the world in this light. People of many persuasions bemoan



277

the loss of national self-sufficiency and its replacement with modernizingforces that extend and deepen patterns of dependency. An Americandiplomat, analyzing a violent outbreak in Micronesia, a colonialterritory in the Pacific, commented,

If we examine our effects on the island culture, we see they have a realcase. Before the U. S. arrived, the natives were self-sufficient, they pickedtheir food off the trees or fished. Now, since we have them hooked onconsumer goods, they’d starve without a can opener. Some of the radicalindependence leaders want to reverse this and develop the old self-sufficiency. We can’t blame them. However, we can’t leave. We need ourmilitary bases there. We have no choice. As some of my friends inWashington say, you’ve got to grab them by the balls, their minds andhearts will follow [Maccoby, 1976: 18 J

The end to food self-sufficiency, therefore, is a normal part ofcapitalist expansion. The theory of the internationalization of capitalexplains why: it is the only way to expand the base from which to extractprofit (surplus value). It is one part of a broader process that increasesprofits and ensures the balanced production of goods needed for socialand economic stability. But since it also fosters the disorganization ofcommunities, it augurs for the onset of political unrest because of theinability of many nations to create the economic and social opportunitiesrequired to productively absorb displaced groups into new activities.

THE POLITICAL DETERMINANTS

The current problem facing Mexican agriculture-the massiveimportation of grains-is only a particularly bothersome manifestationof a much more profound process. This is why we insist on relatingchanges in rural production with modifications in other sectors of theMexican economy.

THE STRATEGIC DEBATE

The changes in Mexican agriculture over the past forty years havebeen quite far-reaching. Primary production has grown more slowlythan the economy as a whole. Profit-maximizing commercial farmerssearched for more profitable products to plant in the most fertile parts of



278

the country. Agroindustries centralized their control over the means ofproduction, displacing smaller enterprises by larger ones that use morecomplex and/ or more economical technologies. As a result, livestockgrew even faster than agriculture during the 1960-1975 period; withinagriculture increasing emphasis is being placed on export-orientedcommercial crops. During the present crisis (1982-1986) agriculture hasgrown faster than the economy as a whole in response to stimuli for

export and increased production for on-farm consumption by small-holders (Table 1). But per capita food consumption has declined as realincomes have been eroded by official austerity programs. As a result ofcommercialization and austerity, world market demand has taken theplace of basic food needs as a major determinant of domesticproduction.

The present imbalance between internal demand and supply of basicfoods for human consumption is a predictable result of deliberatedecisions. Government policy encouraged crops destined for exportmarket or the plates of the middle classes (see the data in Table 2 onsorghum production, for animal feed, which has replaced maizethroughout the country; less than one-third of the population can affordto consume animal products regularly). Basic research and technologicaladvances reinforced this tendency. Although they did not consciouslyset out to do so, policymakers provoked the present food crisis inMexico: heavy expenditures for irrigation and modern farm inputs ledto dramatic changes in the use of farmland in the country’s moreproductive areas (Barkin, 1981b). Those farmers who could find theresources to modify their operations stopped producing traditionalcrops and instead planted on the basis of profitability. But profitabilitydepends on the style of industrialization and on policies that privilegeindustrialized crops at the expense of food crops; for example, sorghumfor animals instead of corn for tortillas. Rather than slowing thedisplacement of mass-consumption food crops by cash crops, govern-ment regulation accelerated the process as farmers desperately searchedfor ways to prosper, or survive (Barkin, 1987b).

These changes are evident from the data on harvested land in Mexico(Table 2): the maize area declined precipitously between 1965 and 1982while sorghum production exploded onto the national scene, becomingthe country’s most extensive cash crop. The rapid growth in harvestedarea for maize in the past few years is partly a reflection of rising realprices for maize and sorghum but principally a response by smallfarmers to plant more area for their own consumption to compensate



279

TABLE 1

Annual Growth Rates of National Product: Mexico

(millions of 1970 pesos, in percentages)

SOURCE: Instituto Nacional de Estadistica e Informitica (1987).

for declining monetary incomes. Thus increasing maize production hasnot led to increased deliveries into the urban areas, which must be

supplied by imports, because prices are too low to be a significantincentive for smallholders to produce for the market.

The imbalance reflects one resolution to a long and heated debateover the formulation of official economic policy. Proponents ofgovernment intervention to formulate a national food self-sufficiencypolicy clashed with those who argued that international specialization,based on the principles of &dquo;comparative advantage,&dquo; was the best (mostprofitable) way to determine national production priorities and domesticpolicy.9 Until the mid-1960s, there appeared to be a happy coincidencebetween the two criteria of need and profitability, at least in some partsof rural Mexico. The first advances of the Green Revolution (which hadits origins in Mexico in the mid-1940s) led to spectacular gains in wheatyields (output per hectare) in the late 1950s and early 1960s with theintroduction of new dwarf varieties on irrigated lands (see Table 2);virtually no one commented on the tremendous social cost of usingexpensive irrigated lands for relatively low valued wheat production. Incontrast, no important advances were made in the technology for rain-fed maize because the influential foreign agronomic community com-mitted its resources to the development of hybrid seeds for irrigatedconditions with heavy inputs of agrochemicals (Hewitt de Alcantara,1976; Barkin and Suirez, 1983); maize yields continued to rise duringthis period as the producers themselves improved the management oftheir resources and as fertilizers became increasingly available. During



280

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the 1950s, continuing improvements in land use as a result of thedistribution of land under the agrarian reform program were as

important as the incorporation of new technologies in pushing Mexicoto increase grain production. By the early 1960s the country was able tosupply its own basic food needs at nutritional levels substantially abovethose prevailing two decades earlier.

In the late 1960s, however, a dramatic policy conflict arose. Thegrowth of Mexican agroindustry and the rapid opening of U.S. marketsfor Mexican exports of fruits, vegetables, and calves created newopportunities for those with the financial resources to participate(Sanderson, 1984). Commercial farmers in northern Mexico rapidlyshifted from basic foods to cash crops for export and domestic markets.In the more affluent grain regions, farmers began a massive switch fromcorn to sorghum to supply the new animal feed industry, which grew onthe basis of an imported technological model of development. Sorghum,virtually unknown in Mexico in the 1950s, became the country’s numberone cash crop less than two decades later (Table 2; De Walt, 1985).These changes in planting patterns proceeded more rapidly than hadbeen expected as basic grain prices, controlled to keep urban wagesdown, made nonbasic commercial farming even more attractive.Mexican and foreign private capital joined with state organizations tofinance the new, more expensive technologies and infrastructurerequired to ensure regular, export-quality crops.

The policy debate about rural development strategy continued torage even after it was apparently resolved in favor of internationalspecialization. Except for brief periods (1973-1975, 1980-1982), theforeign-trade-based model of specialized commercial agriculture reignedsupreme. Domestic price support programs, although rhetoricallycommitted to small-scale agriculture, were never effective instrumentsfor supporting basic food crop production (Barkin and Esteva, 1981).Instead, by allowing world market prices to determine the level ofdomestic prices for nonbasic crops, they stimulated private investmentin commercial agriculture. Government expenditures created a favorableenvironment for this development by providing infrastructure, credit,and technical assistance to increase private profitability.

DOMESTIC SUPPLY MANAGEMENT

The commitment to commercial agricultural development of indus-trial and export crops did not end supply management efforts in local



282

food markets. The national food marketing agency, CONASUPO,actively intervened in national and international markets to ensure atimely and regular supply of basic foods. Given the obvious administra-tive and organizational problems involved in the management of such acomplex program, it was remarkably effective in fulfilling its basicobjectives.

In the process of regulating local markets, CONASUPO had a strongimpact on the sociopolitical structure of rural Mexico. The adage thateconomic policy is not politically or socially neutral is particularlypertinent. CONASUPO and related organizations lacked the abilityeffectively to control national markets: its warehouses were largely inthe privileged producing or consuming regions, and its subsidies fortransport and handling accentuated rather than minimized the differ-ences between privileged and marginal areas. The system was ill-

equipped to receive grain deliveries from individual ejidatarios or smalllandowners. As a result, small farmers were forced to sell their

marketable surpluses at prices below official levels to regional merchantsand intermediaries who had the financial and political resources to dealwith the governmental agency or who sold grains directly. The systemexacerbated economic differences in the countryside and consolidatedprovincial structures of political control, while making the smallfarmers’ existence even more precarious. The significant efforts to alterthis situation in the 1973-1976 period and then in the early 1980s (SAM)by improving the profitability of basic food production proved to be toolittle too late to modify the prevailing pattern of impoverishment. 10

The efforts to enforce the system of official consumer prices for basicfoodstuffs had a significant impact in the cities. CONASUPO concen-trated its efforts in the industrial areas where well-organized workerswould be the direct beneficiaries and the employers would enjoy theindirect benefits of stable food prices (and salaries) for their workers.This mechanism further widened the social gap between rural and urban

groups, affecting most seriously the poorest producers who did notproduce even enough food for their own needs: they were forced to buytheir grain from the provincial merchants who frequently chargedsubstantially more than official prices.

By breaking the relationship between supply and demand in nationalmarkets, CONASUPO has exacerbated the problem of local self-sufficiency. Since it guarantees to meet shortages in local demandthrough imports rather than through price adjustments, the producershave no incentive to be sensitive to changes in the market. Politically



283

vocal groups in urban areas have been effective in pressuring tomaintain low consumer prices. As a result, small farmers, who are in thebest condition to supply the country with basic food crops, findthemselves in the worst of all possible situations: even when there arenational grain shortages, crop prices are kept artificially low; but whenthey are short of food for their own needs, they find that thesegovernment programs do not reach into their regions so that they mustbuy from local merchants who charge substantially higher prices.

THE COSTS OF ECONOMIC POLICY

Who pays the heavy costs of the federal agricultural policy? Federaltransfers have a regressive impact. The present burden is borne by thepoorest members of society because the tax structure places a greaterproportional burden on the poor, and agricultural policy benefits urbangroups (some poor and many middle class) while it punishes mostseverely the poorest of rural producers.

In the last analysis, the agricultural policies that led to the transforma-tion of productive structures are consistent with the broader process ofinternationalization of the Mexican economy. Policymakers achievedtheir implicit goal of stimulating commercial production while tearingmany smallholders from their self-contained communities, forcing theminto the national labor and commodity markets. Internal self-sufficiencydisappeared as an objective. At the same time there was a decline in realincome in rural areas while expensive subsidy programs restrained therise in urban consumer costs. The country was spending its scarceforeign exchange for food imports that could have been produceddomestically with no sacrifice of production in other sectors. Instead ofcontributing to improving the situation, deteriorating conditions inrural Mexico only heightened the overall economic crisis.

THE NATIONAL FOOD PROGRAMS

As early as 1965 some participants in the debate warned of theimpending crisis in agriculture. By stabilizing official prices for basiccrops that discriminated against small producers, policymakers demon-strated their preference for large-scale commercial agriculture. Notsurprisingly, those farmers with sufficient financial or credit resources



284

responded, initiating a downward trend in basic food production thatcontinues to plague the country. The belated recognition of the problemin 1973 only evoked a tepid response from authorities who raised grainsupport prices slightly and created a short-lived and limited program ofassistance to stimulate small farmers’ organization and production.

Economic problems in rural Mexico became more serious and werecompounded by the 1979 drought. The government was obliged toreevaluate its approach to food policy. While still not questioning theircommitment to the doctrine of &dquo;comparative advantages,&dquo; its advocateswere persuaded that there was great latitude for increasing domesticfood production. The Sistema Alimentario Mexicano (SAM) wasannounced in 1980 as a far-reaching program to achieve national foodself-sufficiency in a relatively short period of time while also attackingthe country’s nutritional deficiencies. The SAM was brought to anabrupt end in 1982, with the change in administration, only to beresurrected in vastly different form as the Programa Nacional deAlimentacion (PRONAL) and the Programa Nacional de DesarrolloRural Integrado (PRONADRI) during the next two years.ll i

These programs officially acknowledged a serious national problemof food production and distribution. They identified the massiveimports (Figures 1 and 2) as an undesirable consequence of ill-conceivedpolicies. They proposed methods to increase the country’s foodproduction and to correct the serious nutritional deficiencies that stillplagued a substantial proportion of the population in spite of theimportant advances registered from 1940 to 1965.

The fate of these programs reflects the successes and failures of food

policy itself. They are short-term policy palliatives, economic measures(credits, subsidies, etc.) that allowed surprising production gains andshort-term nutritional improvements but did not reshape the productivestructure in agriculture, and which, significantly, are not initiativesinvolving the principal actors in this drama: the smallholders.

THE SAM AND FOOD SELF-SUFFICIENCY

This program had two major objectives. First, it aimed to achieveself-sufficiency in basic food crops and to improve the nutritional levelof the poorest groups in the population. This is best explained by theSAM itself:

It is essential to improve the nutritional levels of the masses by redirectingtheir consumntion towards eoods that contribute to satisfving their



285

Figure 2: Imports: Sorghum, Oilseeds, and Beans (as a proportion of production)

minimum welfare requirements: only by producing and widely distributingbasic food products can the country organize itself to rescue agriculture,inject new life into the fishing sector, and broaden the domestic market; itwill do this most efficiently and rapidly by creating rural employmentand, in consequence, a better distribution of income.

The second objective was to reduce the country’s growing dependencyon international &dquo;food power.&dquo;To achieve these objectives, four important lines of action were

proposed: (1) to support and increase production in small-scale drylandagriculture with the objective of increasing employment and income andattacking the problem of malnutrition in this social group; (2) tostimulate agroindustries run by small farmers, private groups, or thestate; (3) to promote the production of capital goods, technology, andinputs for agriculture and the food industry; and (4) to guarantee thesupply and distribution of a well-defined basket of basic foods as well asagricultural inputs.

The operational measures to implement these objectives wereprimarily oriented toward agriculture. Among the most notable wereincreases in producer prices for basic food crops, low-interest credits,and subsidized agricultural inputs. Others that were not fully operational-ized included support for technological research in dryland farming, ashared risk program that in the case of damage or loss would cover not



286

only the cash outlays but also ensure the small producer a minimumincome, and support for organizational activities to facilitate the directparticipation of smallholders in production, processing, and distribution.

The opulence in Mexico at the height of the petroleum boompermitted very generous funding. The SAM was extended throughoutthe country. During the 1981 agricultural cycle, the total volume ofcredits increased 40 percent, to finance 6.9 million hectares, 25 percentmore than in the previous year. Crop insurance covered 7.1 millionhectares, a one-year increase of 42 percent. Seeds were widely sold at 75percent below their market prices, while a discount of 30 percent wasauthorized for fertilizers. These supports went primarily to the large andmedium-sized commercial farmers who rapidly adjusted to the newsystem by planting the basic products instead of commercial crops, andto a small minority of dryland smallholders with sufficient resources andaccess to the market to respond quickly to market signals.

The productive results were striking. In the three-year period from1980 to 1982, agriculture grew at 5.2 percent compared to 2.8 percentduring the 1977-1979 period. Grain output increased significantly,primarily through the reincorporation of land into cultivation andswitching from other crops, and then through the improvements infarming technology that were possible because of subsidies for improvedseeds and fertilizers. Corn area and output increased 17 percent and 19percent, respectively, between 1980 and 1981; beans: 22 percent and 52percent; rice: 36 percent and 41 percent. Wheat area increased 17 percentand sorghum 31 percent. 12 Critics point out that the spending increasesand the good rainfall were the significant explanatory factors in thisproduction record: the SAM avoided the organizational and politicalchanges that would have been needed to ensure the continuity of theeffort beyond its own bureaucratic life span.

Consumption and nutritional improvements were also far-reaching.From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, the historical process of

improving diets among worker and small farmer groups was significantlyslowed or even reversed in many parts of the country. The NationalInstitute of Nutrition reported in 1979 that approximately 90 percent ofthe rural population suffered from some degree of calorie and proteinmalnutrition and that half exhibited a severe calorie deficit. The SAMaddressed this problem by identifying &dquo;critical areas&dquo; within the countrywhere the &dquo;target population&dquo; was proportionately large; as might beexpected these people were concentrated in the urban slums and ruralareas, and the highest proportion of people had strong indigenous roots.



287

Together with a basic recommended basket of commodities that wouldprovide the population with its minimum nutritional standards, theSAM initiated a series of measures to improve consumption for thosegroups at accessible prices. These food distribution programs, andcomplementary campaigns of nutritional education and promotion ofbreast feeding, undoubtedly contributed to improving access andincreasing per capita consumption of basic foods, especially among thetarget groups.13 But, since many of the subsidies were made to productsrather than directly to consumers, the programs were exposed to ascathing attack for their high costs, a result of inefficiency andcorruption, an aspect that might have been corrected had the SAM beenallowed to survive longer.On balance, then, the economic stimulus of the SAM only created a

temporary solution to a structural crisis. The reconstruction of the small

producers’ productive base, eroded by many years of discriminatorypolicies, requires explicit support: land improvements, machinery,inputs, and especially confidence in the smallholders’ social and politicalability to organize themselves. The SAM demonstrated that it is

possible to regain food self-sufficiency in smallholder communities.Throughout the country smallholders embarked on this process, but theeconomic pressures and ensuing restrictions following the onset ofeconomic crisis in 1982 created obstacles that were compounded withthe change in presidential regime. The program did not work because ofthe fundamental lack of integration of the small producers into itstechnical and political organization; it could only work if these groupswere not left as marginal beneficiaries, but rather were integrated into adifferent alliance that would have forced a realignment of rural politicalforces in their favor.

THE PROGRAMA NACIONAL DE ALIMENTACI6N (PRONAL)

The PRONAL was created in 1983 to replace the SAM. Born in thesame spirit as its predecessor, it was hobbled from the beginning withsubstantially fewer resources and presidential indifference. Its mandatefor the six-year presidential period was broader than that of its deceasedpredecessor, including not only an attack on the food production crisisand nutrition in both urban and rural areas, but extending to an attackon economic conditions in the countryside.

The PRONAL defined its principal task as stimulating drylandproduction of food. It also explicitly included on its agenda an



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improvement in productivity in agroindustry, a modernization ofmarketing systems nationwide, and an increase in irrigated foodproduction. Its statement of purpose defined these as crucial for anational definition of a program of food self-sufficiency: the varioussteps in the several food production and distribution systems that play akey role in the country’s basic welfare must be better integrated into acoherent whole to guarantee the basis for a rapid improvement inconsumption and nutritional levels.

The PRONAL has been unable to translate its program into practice.Its objectives were clear but not operational. The program enunciated astrong relationship between production and nutrition but no activitiesconcretely related to one another. The target population itself was welldefined, as it was in the SAM documents, but no specific set of actionswas implemented to improve consumption standards or incomes. Onthe contrary, real incomes for most people in rural areas have fallen, asthey have in the rest of the country, with the deepening of the economiccrisis. Public expenditures for rural support programs declined in realterms; in those areas where government chose to invest, the emphasishas been on infrastructure rather than on production. To takeadvantage of the opportunities offered by these public programs,farmers must have productive resources (credit, fertilizers, seeds,machinery, etc); therefore, the benefits only accrued to commercialfarmers and relatively affluent small-scale producers who had access toprivate sources of bank or production credits. Similarly, budgetaryrestrictions and new priorities led to a reduction in subsidies for basicfood products, further impoverishing the poorest segments of Mexicansociety. The PRONAL appears, then, to be a list of good intentions, aset of clothes in which the new emperor can dress up the skeleton

ravaged by deteriorating incomes and unemployment.

THE PROGRAMA NACIONAL DE DESARROLLORURAL INTEGRADO (PRONADRI)

Cognizant of the stillbirth of the PRONAL, the Agriculture Ministryoffered its own alternative for rural reconstruction in 1985. TheNational Program for Integrated Rural Development proposed tocorrect the consumer bias in previous programs by emphasizinginvestment in productive activities that would raise output and incomeas a practical way of attacking national problems of poverty andmalnutrition. Announced as an adjunct to the PRONAL, the new



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program was heralded as a technical and financial solution to the

pressing problems of rural Mexico.There has been little new activity by which to evaluate the new

program. Like many efforts of this type, a whole range of existinggroups charged with the design and implementation of normal govern-ment programs in rural areas were formally attached to the PRONADRI.In the present environment of further cutbacks in expenditures andinexpensive (but ineffectual) rhetorical solutions to pressing nationalproblems, this program will join the long list of apparently well-intentioned responses incapable of confronting the real obstacles torural progress.

IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE ENDOF SELF-SUFFICIENCY?

In Mexico, capitalist expansion is profoundly transforming produc-tion and social organization. The internationalization of capital subjectspeople and their social groups to the new process, restricting theirindependence of action in its search for profits, new workers to beemployed, and new markets for its products. In agriculture andagroindustry, this has occasioned enormous changes in production andin diet, changes that are accelerating at an unprecedented rate through-out the whole society. Today the trend is not to produce the necessarybut rather the profitable. International specialization-and local depen-dency-are the results. In most countries where the majority is poor orunable to participate productively in the market economy, profitabilityand need are incompatible-unless an effective government programcould guarantee a minimum standard of nutritional satisfaction for

everyone. In the absence of such a program, the problems of malnutritionand starvation continue to figure as a major cause of illness and death inthe Third World.

The technical capacity to resolve these problems is widely available.In some countries broad restrictions on competing production prioritieswould be needed to face the problems of the majority. In contrast,Mexico has sufficient resources to produce the necessary foodstuffswithout limiting the use of grains for animals or reducing the massivelosses involved in transportation, storage, and processing. It would noteven be necessary to reduce agricultural exports. Food self-sufficiencycould even be achieved without help from small farmers: it simply would



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be necessary to require farmers in the irrigation districts to plantspecified quotas of basic food crops.14 This undesirable alternativewould sacrifice high-valued export crops in the process. Such a programwould further polarize economic and social conditions in the countryand aggravate the situation by reducing employment and raising theprice of basic foods without satisfying the needs of the poorest.

Because the state has taken a dynamic role in promoting development,other more effective options for achieving food self-sufficiency might beconsidered. The SAM was one such option, an official response toprofound contradictions in the very nature of Mexican developmentoccasioned by the rapid advance of the internationalization of capital.This development wrestled smallholders from their traditional societies,making them dependent on the market to earn their livelihood andpurchase their basic necessities. It imposed profound changes on thesepeople without guaranteeing them the possibility of survival once theirformer strategy was no longer viable. The state was forced to intervenebecause, under the new circumstances, the majority could not be assuredof the satisfaction of its basic needs. The SAM attempted to create somesort of balance between private interests and collective needs, increasingeffective demand by providing marginal groups with their minimalnutritional needs and stimulating production to supply this demand.Such public programs that respond to material deficits and socialconflict are increasingly important as the gap between mass needs andprivate disposition to satisfy them widens. Official programs that wouldstrengthen local and regional producer organizations and give them theresources and authority to operate productively are essential to

counteract the devastating effects caused by private profit-makingforces. But the SAM was a response that provoked its own opposition, adrastic program to face a problem that could not be solved by a short-term increase in expenditures.

The SAM and the other reform efforts did not affect the essence ofthe underlying process of the internationalization of capital. For a shortperiod they imprinted their own particular modifications, slowing theadvance of the overall process and creating profitable opportunities fornationals, including regional producer and consumer organizations aswell as an occasional community of small farmers or a cooperative. Butthese groups enjoyed little autonomy, and no permanent source ofsupport for their productions The reform efforts made the system lessefficient than the paradigmatic model of capitalist organization withoutaltering its essential dynamics.



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Most smallholders have no viable alternative to their integration intothe market economy. They remain on the fringes of society, unable tofind employment in the modern sectors, no longer able to survive in thesubsistence economy of a past epoch. It would only be possible toreverse the process with new programs firmly based in the power of thesegroups to organize and control their own production, to reconstruct ona new basis the viability of their old communities. But to implement suchan alternative would require other modifications in the social andpolitical fabric of society. These are items for another agenda, anotherpolitical moment. Because of this the most likely scenario for Mexicoand its small farmers is the end to food self-sufficiency.

EPILOGUE: FINAL REFLECTIONS IN LIGHTOF THE DEBT PROBLEM

The loss of food self-sufficiency is one particularly visible manifesta-tion of the profound crisis now afflicting Mexico. The crisis is the

outcome of the successful implantation of a model of economic growththat has been exported to many countries in Latin America. Years ofrapid growth and transformation restructured space and production,generating jobs and raising real living standards for virtually everysegment of society. Although the benefits were inequitably distributed,the internationalization process effectively broke down local resistanceand barriers to national integration. The outpouring of consumer goodswent preferentially to an affluent upper third of the population, the realbeneficiaries of that period. The unwillingness (or inability) to chargethe high costs of economic growth to these local groups, who might havepaid the costs of this development model, did not provoke a crisisbecause of a unique conjuncture: the emerging surfeit of liquidity inworld capital markets that increased as growth in the United Statesslowed in the 1960s forced bankers to search for new places for theirfuture expansion.16

After being bribed to accept the growth model based on debt and oilrevenues, broad segments of Mexican society are now being obliged toservice the debt with personal austerity and national depression. Theyare told that there is no alternative. The model is consistent and all-

embracing. Furthermore, with the formerly isolated groups now

integrated into a national society, the crisis imposes an even heavierburden on these people: they have less freedom (ability) to defend



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themselves by retreating into their communities where self-sufficiencyand mutual support were once the norm. They have nowhere to turn.To confront this dilemma, the Mexican people must recognize that

they are at war. The economic war pits the country against its bankers,its leaders against its people. The war is more deadly than if it werefought with munitions. It is against forces-internal and external-thatthreaten its very integrity as a nation. The onslaught of recessionarypolicies is unraveling the social and economic fabric, while protectionistpolicies, international competition, and growing debt service burdenscombine to make sound international economic management moredifficult. To respond effectively to these conflicting pressures, Mexicomust reorganize. Priorities must be reshaped to increase domesticproduction to satisfy internal needs and to generate exports to finance arealistic program of debt service. A modified war economy strategyrequires new political alliances so that all available natural, produced,and human resources can be mobilized to resuscitate production andfacilitate broad participation. Once the resources have been mustered,then productivity and efficiency can become important concerns. It isimpossible as long as national priorities and policies are dictated by theinternational market.

The transition to a war economy strategy might be initiated bystimulating small-scale production for the satisfaction of basic needsthat, in turn, would reinvigorate the entire national economy. Thisstrategy involves the reincorporation of vast areas of farmland and largesegments of the rural population who have been displaced by thetransformation process that accompanied the integration of nationaleconomies into the global market. In Mexico, millions of tons of grainsare imported, all of which could be produced locally. There are 10million hectares of idle farmland in the hands of smallholders, much ofwhich could be put back into production with appropriate incentives. Inaddition, there are more than 2 million hectares of irrigated farmlandplanted in grains that could be sown in dryland agriculture, thus freeingmore land for export production and generating even more employmentand internal demand. This massive insertion of lands and people intoproduction with domestically available resources could be structured soas not to compete with existing production for export and othermarkets. 17 The local production of basic consumption items (food,clothing, and shelter) and infrastructure must be accompanied by otherelements of a policy for a war economy, including efficient rationing ofavailable goods to ensure their equitable distribution among all social



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groups and limitations on the consumption of nonessential goodsrequiring imported inputs.

The modified war economy strategy will not be implemented by agovernment committed to financing its deficits with funds from abroadand exacting greater sacrifices from one or another of the sectors of theworking population. It requires the construction of a broad basedalliance among social groups that would create a new platform for amore equitable pattern of long-term economic growth in Mexico, as inmost of Latin America. The country’s basic consumption needs wouldbe produced domestically and broadly distributed to permit a higherstandard of living than is presently possible for most people. Exportswould continue to be encouraged, but with policies that did not penalizedomestic production of mass consumption items. With a more vigorousrate of domestic activity and a broader basis for participation inproduction, more resources would be available. In a relatively richcountry such as Mexico, such a strategy would generate new savings forfurther growth based on a fuller use of present productive capacity.Private production could expand on a more solid footing, and thenation would have a structurally lower demand for foreign goods. Thusit could more easily meet its international financial obligations whilealso becoming a more prosperous and stable member of the internationalcommunity.

NOTES

1. The term "food self-sufficiency" used in this article refers to the country’s ability tosupply its population from domestic production with basic foodstuffs in sufficientquantities to achieve minimum nutritional standards. This definition contrasts with thatof food-security, which refers to a country’s ability to supply its population with food,regardless of the source.

2. Rodriguez (1979: 97-98) contrasts domestic prices, including prices fixed throughthe government guarantee program, with the evolution of international prices andconcludes that "the internal prices of basic foods have tended over the long term to followinternational levels."

3. Shanin (1983) has analyzed Marx’s views on uneven development and "develop-ment" as we know it today in a path-breaking book that sheds new light on the process ofinternationalization. He points out that

Marx’s new societal map has assumed the global coexistence of potentiallyprogressive social formations and of essentially static ’a-historical’ ones.... Theheterogeneity of global society, the differential histories of its parts, could be easierplaced and explained by a heuristically richer scheme—a combination of



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evolutionary stages of progressing societies and of the a-historical OrientalDespotisms, with space left between for further categories such as ’semi-Asiastic’[1983: 4-5].4. The internationalization of capital is a shorthand expression for the complex but

normal process of expansion of capitalism as a productive system (see, e.g., Hymer, 1980;Palloix 1974,1975,1979; Barkin and Rozo, 1981; Rozo and Barkin, 1983). It is conceivedin the tradition of Marxist political economy, and as such offers an alternative todependency theory by focusing on the nature of the accumulation process and its impacton the social organization of production (Barkin, 1981a).

5. Eric Wolf (1982) provides a masterful discussion of the penetration of capitalisminto what we now know as the Third World and the integration of these societies into whathas become an international productive and marketing system.

6. The SAM was an ambitious program that proposed achieving national foodself-sufficiency. Although it dramatically improved the incentives for basic food

production and increased subsidies for consumption, it rapidly fell victim to the exigenciesof crisis. See Austin and Esteva (1987), Luiselli (1986), and Spalding (1985) for alternativeevaluations of the program.

7. Of course, the recent economic history of many Latin American countries is one ofthe rapid erosion of these gains. For a discussion of the impact of crisis on living standardsin the Mexican situation, see Lustig (1987) and Barkin (1987a).

8. For a discussion of this process see the case studies in Sanderson (1985) and Frobelet al. (1979). Unfortunately, Fröbel et al.’s book gives the impression that the NIDL is theresult of export production in the Third World for the advanced capitalist countries,whereas most studies show that it is a product of the acceptance by these latecomers ofproductive structures and consumption patterns copied from the richer countries, oftenfor internal use rather than for export.

9. This debate was brought to national fora in 1979 when the question of Mexico’sjoining the international General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was opened forpublic discussion. Although the decision not to adhere appeared to be a defeat for thosewanting to open the Mexican economy rapidly to international competition, the dramaticdismantling of the protectionist barriers around imports and Mexico’s adhesion to theGATT in 1986 demonstrated the foolishness of such a hasty judgment.

10. For an analysis of some small programs run by CONASUPO that did make adifference for the participating groups of farmers see Fox (1986).

11. The most complete analysis of the SAM and a discussion of the successorprograms is to be found in Austin and Esteva (1987). Unfortunately, most of the peopledirectly involved in the program with access to the information necessary to evaluate theprogram have reintegrated themselves into other parts of the bureaucratic structure andhave chosen not to analyze the experience.

12. Andrade and Blanc (in Austin and Esteva, 1987) provide the most complete set ofdata on the productive changes of the period.

13. For an evaluation of the nutritional improvements during this period and thesubsequent deterioration as a result of agricultural policy questions and austerityprograms, see Schatan (1987).

14. Because of the pressures to produce more food needs locally, the proportion ofirrigated lands dedicated to basic grains has now reached 50 percent, reflecting anextraordinarily poor allocation of the nation’s resources, especially in view of the fact that



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40 percent of the rain-fed lands open to cultivation are idle or seriously underutilized. Theconsequences mentioned in the text are part of the agricultural crisis now confronting thecountry.

15. See Fox (1986) for a discussion of some of these efforts and an evaluation of theirlimitations.

16. For an analysis of the impact of this impasse on the reconciliation of conflictingsocial demands on the national economy and on inflation see Barkin and Esteva (1986).

17. This is not the place to go into the details of such a program. Suffice it to say thatthe unused productive potential already in the hands of producers in Mexico is quite large;when combined with the large number of people under- or unemployed, the possibilities ofadopting the war-economy strategy appear more realistic. Further materials on thisapproach may be found in Barkin (1987c) and in other articles in the same book.

REFERENCES

Austin, James and Gustavo Esteva1987 Food Policy in Mexico: The Search for Self-Sufficiency. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press.

Barkin, David1981a "Internationalization of capital: an alternative approach," pp. 156-161 in R.Chilcote (ed.), Dependency and Marxism: Toward a Resolution of the Debate.Boulder, CO: Westview.1981 b "El uso de la tierra agricola en México." Research Report No. 17, Center forU.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego. (Also in Problemas delDesarrollo, 47/48 [August 1981-January 1982]: 59-85.)1982 "The impact of agribusiness on rural development," pp. 1-25 in S. McNall (ed.),Current Perspectives in Social Theory. Volume 3. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.1985 "Global proletarianization," pp. 26-45 in S. Sanderson (ed.), The American inthe New International Division of Labor. New York: Holmes & Meier.1987a "Stabilization policy: the destabilization of Mexico." Voices of Mexico(UNAM) 3 (March).1987b "Agricultural prosperity and nutritional poverty." Research Report No. 45,Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.1987c "El sector social: al rescate de México?" in A. Labra (ed.) El sector social de laeconomía mexicana.

Barkin, David and Gustavo Esteva1981 El papel del sector público en la comercialización y la fijación de precios de losproductos agrícolas bdsicos en México. Mexico City: Comisión Económica paraAmérica Latina (CEPAL/ MEX/ 1051).1986 "Social conflict and inflation in Mexico," pp. 128-147 in N. Hamilton and T.Harding (eds.) Modern Mexico: State, Economy and Social Conflict. Newbury Park,CA: Sage.

Barkin, David and Carlos Rozo1981 "L’agriculture et l’internationalisation du capital." Revue Tiers-Monde 88(October-December): 723-745.



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Barkin, David and Blanca Suárez1983 El fin del principio: las semillas y la sequridad alimentaria. Mexico City: Centrode Ecodesarrollo y Editorial Océano.1985 El fin de la autosuficiencia alimentaria. Mexico City: Centro de Ecodesarrollo yEditorial Océano.

De Walt, Billie1985 "Mexico’s second green revolution: food for feed." Mexican Studies/ EstudiosMexicanos 1: 29-60.

Dirección General de Economia Agrícola (Secretaria de Agricultura y RecursosHidráulicos)1983 Consumos aparentes deproductos agrícolas 1925-1982, in Econotecnia Agrícola7 (September).

Fox, Jonathan1986 "The political economy of reform in Mexico: the case of the Mexican foodsystem." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Fröbel, Folker, Jurgen Heinrichs, and Otto Kreye1979 The New International Division of Labour. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Hewitt de Alcántara, Cynthia1976 Modernizing Mexican Agriculture: Socioeconomic Implications of Technologi-cal Changes 1940-1970. Geneva: United Nations Institute for Social Development. (ASpanish edition was published by Siglo XXI.)

Hymer, Stephen1980 The Multinational Corporation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Instituto Nacional de Estadistica a Informática (Secretaría de Programación y

Presupuesto)1987 Sistema de Cuentas Nacionales de México 1960-1985. Mexico City: SPP,INEGI.

Luiselli Fernández, Cassio1986 The Route to Food Self-Sufficiency in Mexico: Interactions with the U.S. FoodSystem. Monograph No. 17, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University ofCalifornia, San Diego.

Lustig, Nora1987 "Economic crisis and living standards in Mexico: 1982-1985." A Spanishversion will be forthcoming in Estudios Económicos (El Colegio de México).

Maccoby, M.1976 The Gamesman. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Palloix, Christian1974 Les firmes multinationales et le proces de internationalisation. Paris: Maspero.1975 L’internationalisation du capital. Paris: Maspero.1979 Procès de production et crise du capitalisme. Paris: Maspero.

Rodríguez, Gonzalo1979 "El comportamiento de los precios agropecuarios." Economia Mexicana(CIDE) 1.

Rozo, Carlos and David Barkin1983 "La producción de alimentos en el proceso de internacionalizaci6n del capital."El Trimestre Económico 50 (July-September): 1603-1626.



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Sanderson, Steven1984 Trade Aspects of the Internationalization of Mexican Agriculture: Consequen-ces for Mexico’s Food Crisis Monograph No. 10, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies,University of California, San Diego.

Sanderson, Steven (ed.)1985 The Americas in the New International Division of Labor. New York: Holmes& Meier.

Schatan, Jacobo1987 "Nutrición y crisis en México." Problemas del Desarrollo (UNAM).

Shanin, Teodor (ed.)1983 Late Marx and the Russian Road: Marx and "the Peripheries of Capitalism.

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New York: Monthly Review Press.Spalding, Ruth

1985 "The Mexican food crisis: An analysis of the SAM," Research Report No. 33,Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.

Wolf, Eric1982 Europe and the People Without History. Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress.



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