The Limits on Pro‐poor Agricultural Trade in Guatemala: Land, Labour and Political Power

The persistence of rural poverty in Guatemala since the early 1990s challenges the purported association between agricultural export growth and poverty alleviation. Lack of access to education, health and credit, and the historical legacies of land inequality, labour exploitation and ethnic discrimination, are preventing growth from reaching the rural poor. Most analyses, including the World Bank's recent ‘Poverty in Guatemala’ report, fail to consider how the economic and political power of the country's economic elite perpetuate and exacerbate poverty. A focus on two of Guatemala's most dynamic agro‐export sectors — sugar and snow peas (mange‐tout), both reputed to have had a significant impact on poverty alleviation — reveals the limits on pro‐poor growth. Policy recommendations to promote pro‐poor growth that are derived from the analysis include full implementation of the labour code, a national land‐titling programme, and cultural programmes to change elite attitudes towards poverty and development.