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

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.