Agrarian reform in Mexico turns thirty: dispossession, divided communities and environmental degradation

Abstract

In 1992, the Salinas de Gotari administration pushed through a major revision of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, thereby ending the distribution of agricultural lands that began following the 1917 Revolution, and allowing the alienation of ejidal (community) lands. The 1992 reform, sometimes compared to the 18th century English Enclosure Movement, was monumental in scope, affecting over three million agricultural workers and over half the national territory. It promised to increase private investment, regularize or end illegal land transfers and improve agricultural productivity. Thirty years later few of these objectives have been achieved in Yucatán. Instead, based on a close examination of two communities – and supplemental data from nearby sites – I show that ejidos are now bitterly divided between pro- and anti-privatization factions, illegal land sales remain common (especially in peri-urban settings), and capital-starved communities are forced to engage in environmentally destructive projects.

ABSTRACT (Spanish)

En 1992, la administración de Salinas de Gotari revisó exitosamente el artículo 27 de la constitución mexicana, poniendo así fin a la distribución de tierras agrícolas que comenzó después de la Revolución de 1917 y permitiendo la enajenación de tierras ejidales (comunitarias). La reforma de 1992, a veces comparada con el movimiento de cercamiento inglés del siglo XVIII, tuvo un alcance monumental y afectó a más de tres millones de trabajadores agrícolas y a más de la mitad del territorio nacional; prometió aumentar la inversión privada, regularizar o poner fin a las transferencias ilegales de tierras y mejorar la productividad agrícola. Treinta años después, pocos de estos objetivos se han logrado en Yucatán. En cambio, basándose en un examen minucioso de dos comunidades –y datos complementarios de sitios cercanos– este estudio sostiene que los ejidos ahora están amargamente divididos entre facciones a favor y en contra de la privatización, las ventas ilegales de tierras siguen siendo comunes y las comunidades privadas de capital se ven obligadas a participar en proyectos ambientalmente destructivos.

IMPLICATIONS

There are no simple policy solutions to land loss and environmental degradation in Yucatán. Despite the 2018 election of President López Obrador, a forceful critic of neoliberalism, there is little evidence of a will to “reform the reform” in government circles or on the Mexican left. At this junction, the best strategy for defending indigenous land in Yucatán may be through the consultation process and through the courts, especially now that Mexico is a signatory of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169. This process is already underway. Yucatan’s ejiditarios and ex-ejiditarios are overwhelming Maya (if not always so identified), and indigenous, community based organizations dedicated to protecting land, water, and native seeds are joining forces throughout the region. With the help of UN field organizers, NGOs like Cultural Survival, and human rights organizations like Indignación, they have begun to use the consultation process and the courts to limit corporate intrusion.

SOCIAL MEDIA STATEMENT

Ronald Loewe examines the consequences of the neoliberal agrarian reform of 1992 on communities in Yucatán, and the emerging resistance to land loss and environmental degradation.

Keywords:

• Mexico
• agrarian reform
• conflict
• environment
• ejido

KEYWORDS (Spanish):

• México
• ejido
• reforma agraria
• conflicto
• ambiente
• resistencia

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the support of California State University at Long Beach for providing a sabbatical and several course releases to conduct the research for this article. I also thank the following individuals who offered crucial information, valuable insights, thoughtful criticism and much needed encouragement: Adolfo Rodríguez Canto, Janitizio Durán Castillo, Oscar Durán Castillo, Othón Baños Ramírez, Xavier Moya, Mauricio Casares Castro, Reportero Tatich, the anonymous peer reviewers of this manuscript, and many others who might not wish to have their names published. This study, IRBNET 14485505, was approved by the CSULB Institutional Review Board.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The primary benefit to joining PROCEDE was that members would receive up to three land titles (one for their house plot, one for their farm plot and one representing a percentage of the value of the common goods, including common lands). Another important benefit of joining PROCEDE was individual plot delineation (Barnes et al. 2015; Castellanos 2010).

2 The literature on agrarian reform and conflict in Mexico is complex. While two recent studies (Castañeda Dower and Pfutze 2020; Murphy and Rossi 2016) argue that the distribution of land titles following the 1992 reform led to increased security in property rights and a significant decline in the murder rate, both contain important caveats. The first acknowledges that the results only hold true in cases where the dominant political party remained in power during the entire study period. The second acknowledges that the underlying explanation for the decline may be the outmigration – and decreased competition for land – that accompanied the reform. Moreover, both studies cover the period from 1993 to 2007, not the current period. Other studies point in a different direction. Garfias and Kronick (2013) did not find the same connection between agrarian reform and violence, and Lombard (2016) and Salazar (2012) argue that agrarian reform led to incommensurate systems of property rights and increased conflict in peri-urban ejidos. Finally, Torres-Mazuera (2023) notes that filings before the agrarian court in Yucatán increased by more than 500% between 1993 and 2019.

3 All acts related to the use, disposition and modification of these land rights must be recorded with RAN, which operates through state-level offices. RAN is also responsible for issuing: (1) certificados particulares, which document a household’s rights to individually cultivated plots and its proportional share of common-use lands; (2) urban plot certificates; and (3) titles for land held in freehold (domino pleno), which are then registered in the Public Registry of Property (Brown 2004; Barnes et al. 2015). The Procuraduría Agraria (PA) is responsible for overseeing the election and certification of ejidal officers.

4 Chablekal is one of many communities swallowed up by the expansion of Mérida. Others are: Xcumpich, Sodzil Norte, Mulsay, Santa Gertrudis Copo and Chuburná. As communities merge with urban Mérida, they quickly lose their autonomy. Chablekal, for example, no longer has a justice of the peace, and the municipal president is now simply an auxiliary to the Mérida government. The Autonomous University of Chapingo in Temozón Norte is also threatened by wealthy Yucatecans eager to obtain land. (Echeverría 2014; Chablekal: Pueblo Maya Contra el Sistema Agraria y la Especulación Imobilario, Dossier de Prensa, August 2021) http://indignacion.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Dossier-Chablekal-v4.pdf.).

5 For a more detailed description of how power brokers within the ejido work with businessmen and lawyers to reclassify inalienable forest lands (monte) as agricultural parcels or urban land that can be sold, see Torres-Mazuera (2023). By taking advantage of legal loopholes in forestry law and bureaucratic “exceptions,” Torres-Mazuera argues that tens of thousands of hectares of ejidal land have been sold independently of PROCEDE. The process also, apparently, encouraged agrarian officials to become businessmen themselves.

6 The 2010 Population and Housing Census (Censo de Población y Vivienda de 2010) shows that 62.7 percent of the population of Yucatán identify as indigenous, a four percent increase from the 2000 census. This increase occurred despite the fact that between 1990 and 2010 the number of people who claim to speak Maya dropped from 44.2 percent to 30.3 percent.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ronald Loewe

Ronald Loewe is a professor of anthropology at California State University, Long Beach. He is the author of Maya or Mestizo: Nationalism, Modernity and Its Discontents (2010) and Of Sacred Lands and Strip Malls: The Battle for Puvunga (2016).