Mexican Land Reform, conceived during the civil war and initiated in the Revolutionary Code of 1917, is responsible for the existence today of three different farming groups. These are the particulares, the private farmers, the ejidatarios, the peasant farmers, and the colonos, the colonist farmers. This study is concerned with the relative fortunes of the three, and especially with the largest numerically, the ejidatarios. This last group has been regarded, and is still so considered, as the worst off. The plight of the ejidatarios seems to be even more acute in modernized areas according to State and national statistics. It is hypothesized here that certain aspects of the Mexican Land Reform work against the better interests of the ejidatarios, particularly in areas where modernized agricultural practices have become the norm. The hypothesis is tested in one of the agriculturally most advanced areas in all Mexico, the Rio Fuerte Irrigation District of Northern Sinaloa. Within this District the performance of the Mexican ejido, peasant holding, is compared with that of the private property farm. The comparison begins with an investigation of all cropping activities in the District, designed to establish the broad differences in performance between the ejidal and private farm groups (Chapter III). It is found:- that the ejidal sector operates its cropland less intensively than the private sector; that the ejidatarios do not compensate for their poorer resource use by obtaining crop yields and prices markedly superior to those of the private sector; and that the ejidatarios obtain a much lower gross income per hectare than the private farmers. In the second stage of comparison, a sample of farms is taken from the most productive sub-area in the District, in order to test the hypothesis and to try to isolate the primary factors hindering the ejidal sector (Chapter IV). The farms selected consist of the ejidal plots where wheat is cultivated in the main crop rotation; and for the purposes of comparing net incomes, wheat-growing private and colono farms are also sampled. It is found that the mean net income per hectare is much lower in the ejidal than in the other two sectors. This cannot be entirely explained by poorer quality land resources, ineptitude, lack of hybrid seed or fertilizer, or by shortage of irrigation water. Nor can it be entirely explained by its somewhat poorer overall yield. Rather is the problem found to be in the nature of the ejidatarios' credit source, the Ejidal Banks, and the operational constraints associated with that source's loan policy. It is shown that the cost of ejidal farm operation is unnecessarily high, because the ejidatarios are not permitted efficient use of their own labour resources; hired labour and machinery are supplied by the Banks to the ejidatarios to cultivate their land and these inappropriated high-cost inputs are charged within the loans given., It is concluded that overmuch modernization is being forced upon the peasant farmers, to the ultimate detriment of their farm's viability, their personal income and living levels, and also that the hypothesis is correct:- The Agrarian Reform Laws have indeed led to operational difficulties and considerable depression of the peasant farmer's net income, though the particular credit system evolved was actually created to benefit him. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

In Mexico, a primary agent for social change continues to be agrarian reform. However this is no longer restricted to the reformation of outdated, pre-Revolution land tenure systems. Today, it is necessary to formulate effective and feasible agrarian policies which will help to meet Mexico's current needs for financial, technological and social development and which will solve problems created by the new land tenure structure. It is thus that the Mexican government has launched various new programmes which are intended to facilitate and enhance the development of the ejido system of land tenure within the country. The use of the ejido as a means of distributing and holding lands has had problematical success. Because peasants' rights to ejido lands are usufructuary, they have no title to the land. As a result, the land cannot be used as collateral for securing loans for agricultural production from private lending institutions. To aid the ejidatarios, the government has established specific national credit banks whose function it is to lend money to groups of peasants who in turn assume a collective responsibility for the debt incurred. This study examines credit groups in two colonies along the Candelaria River, Campeche, Mexico, to determine the impacts of these groups on agricultural landscapes in the colonies. As somewhat of a control, in order that a valid basis for comparison might be established, a third community, possessing a similar physical environment and organizational framework, but lacking credit groups, was also studied. The intent of the study is to investigate how the function of credit groups affects land area cultivated, methods of agriculture, types of crops grown, and the socio-economic well-being of the communities in the field area. In order to undertake the study, it was first deemed necessary to review the evolution of land tenure systems in Mexico with a view towards understanding the framework within which the Mexican peasant is intended to carry out his agricultural activities. Three critical social factors were then identified as affecting the unity and cohesion found in the credit groups, and ultimately within the communities themselves. These factors were the background of group and community members, allegiance to the group or community, and the leadership quality found in the field area. Interviews were then carried out, with the majority of people interviewed fitting into two broad categories, either peasants who were eligible to receive or in fact were receiving agricultural credit, or peasants who were ineligible to receive this aid. Additional information regarding the characteristics of the field area and the operation of the credit groups was obtained from credit banks serving the area, from the Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization, the Centre of Agrarian Studies, and other relevant sources. The study indicates the agricultural methods and types of crops grown in the field area are directly affected by the credit groups and result in agricultural landscapes which bear a strikingly different aspect from those effected by peasants who do not benefit from credit aid. Nevertheless, this is a superficial difference. The land area cultivated and, perhaps more important, the economic well-being of those who receive credit aid versus those who do not receive such aid, does not appear to differ significantly. This similarity in these latter two variables is shown to be attributable in part to the diverse and, in some cases, incompatible backgrounds of some residents of the field area, to varying degrees of allegiance and commitment to the credit groups and communities studied, and to differing qualities of leadership within the groups and communities. Equally important was the finding that the ejido system of land tenure was unacceptable to the colonists who were interviewed In light of the impact of the social factors on the field area, and the apparent disteem for the actual framework within which the residents of the colonies exist, the validity of colonization schemes such as that along the Candelaria becomes questionable. Consequently, implications for changes in the current ejido system of land tenure are discussed in the final chapter of the study. If the system itself is not abandoned, as it might well be modifications to it are certainly imperative. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation is an ethnography of resource control in the municipio of Cucurpe, Sonora, Mexico. The municipio itself covers 1,788 square kilometers of rugged, semi-arid terrain bisected by the San Miguel river and its tributaries. Less than one percent of the land is cultivated, the rest devoted to livestock raising, primarily cattle. Most Cucurpe households make their living as both ranchers and farmers. The control of land and water therefore becomes a vitally important political and economic issue. Twenty-one percent of the municipio is controlled by three peasant corporate communities--the comunidades of Cucurpe and San Javier, and the ejido 6 de Enero. The rest of the land belongs to private ranchers, many of whom are wealthy and reside outside the municipio. The dissertation focuses upon the history, structure and functions of the Cucurpe comunidad, the largest and most powerful of the three institutions, describing its role in past and present politics of resource control. Considerable economic inequality exists among Cucurpe households, not only among private ranchers and peasants, but among peasant households themselves. The range of economic inequality is ascertained, and conclusions about the relationships between inequality and the politics of resource control are drawn. It is argued that Cucurpe is composed of at least four different classes. These classes conflict and compete over two major issues: the control of grazing and arable land. Most households belonging to the corporate communities unite in opposition to private ranchers when their access to corporate rangeland is threatened. They battle each other over the status of arable land. Those with land consider it a private resource. Those without land content it belongs to the corporate communities themselves, a position supported by federal agrarian reform law. Such conflict seriously threatens the stability of these peasant organizations.