Policy Reforms and Poverty in the Mexican Ejido Sector

The Mexican ejido sector is extraordinarily important in terms of both control over natural resources and social welfare. It contains approximately 60 percent of the rural population, half of the agricultural land, and half of the irrigated land. It is a major reservoir of rural poverty and an important source of migrants to the United States. This sector has been subjected to important reforms since 1990. This includes global reforms affecting the context where ejidatario households perform such as trade liberalization, NAFTA, and real exchange rate depreciation. It also includes reforms directly targeted at the sector such as introduction of individual property rights over land plots formerly in usufruct; descaling of credit, marketing, and technical assistance provided to the ejido by specialized state agencies; devolution of control over ejido affairs to the community; and greater freedoms for individual ejidatarios in making decisions about income strategies. One important objective of the reforms was to change entrepreneurial behavior in the ejido sector, expecting to induce greater efficiency in resource allocation and greater responses to changing market opportunities