Agrarian land reform in Mexico
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Before the 1910 Mexican Revolution that overthrew Porfirio Díaz most of the land was owned by a single elite ruling class. Legally there was no slavery or serfdom; but through heavy debts, Indian wage workers, or peasants, were essentially debt-slaves to the landowners. A small percentage of rich landowners owned most of the country's farm land. With so many people brutally suppressed, revolts and revolution were common in Mexico. In order to relieve the Mexican peasant's plight and stabilize the country various leaders tried different types of agrarian land reform.
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[edit] 1856 Lerdo Law
Finance Minister, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada passes the Lerdo Law. The Lerdo Law allowed the government to force the sale of all Church real estate.
[edit] Land reform from 1910 to 1934
During the Álvaro Obregón presidency, Mexico began to concentrate on land reform. After the revolution, land redistributed to Mexicans as part of a process of nationalization and "Mexicanization". Land distribution began almost immediately, and affected both foreign and large domestic land owners (Hacendados) however, this process was very slow. Between the years of 1915-1928, 5.3m hectares were distributed to over a half million recipients in some 1500 communities. By 1930, though, ejidal (communal land holdings) constituted only 6.3% of national agricultural property (by area) or 9.4% by value.
The revolution reversed the Porfirian tend towards land concentration and, no less important, set in motion a long process of agrarian mobilization. The power and legitimacy of the landlord class, which had underpinned Porfirian rule, never recovered. The radical and egalitarian sentiments produced by the revolution had made landlord rule of the old kind impossible.
[edit] Cardenista land reform 1934 to 1940
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President Lázaro Cárdenas in 1934 passed the 1934 Agrarian Code and accelerated the pace of land reform. Agrarian reform had come close to extinction in the early 1930s. Cardenas' reforms were sweeping, rapid and in some respects structurally innovative. Cardenas distributed more land than all his revolutionary predecessors put together, a 400% increase. He also accelerated the process and greatly promoted the collective ejido in order to justify the expropriation of large commercial haciendas. The Cardenista onslaught on the landowning class aroused fears of a socialist uprising among business interests, while a few economists and others saw agrarian reform as a means to deepen the domestic market and increase aggregate demand.
[edit] Step back 1940 to 1970
Starting with the government of Miguel Alemán (1946-52) land reform steps made in previous governments were rolled back. Alemán's government allowed capitalist entrepreneurs to rent peasant land. This created phenomenon known as neolatifundismo, where land owners build up large-scale private farms on the basis of controlling land which remains ejidal but is not sown by the peasants to whom it is assigned.
[edit] 1970 and Statization
In 1970 President Luis Echeverría began his term by declaring land reform dead. In the face of peasant revolt he was forced to eat his words and embarked on the biggest land reform program since Cárdenas. Echeverría legalized land invasions of huge foreign-owned private farms which were turned into new collective ejidos.
[edit] Land reform from 1991 to present
In 1988 President Carlos Salinas de Gortari was elected. In December 1991 he amended Article 27 of the Constitutional to make it legal to sell ejido land and allow peasants to put up their land as collateral for a loan.
[edit] Effects of land reform
Today, most Mexican peasants are landowners. However, their holdings are usually too small, and farmers must supplement their incomes by working for the remaining landlords, and/or traveling to the United States.
