Bulmer-Thomas V., Coatsworth J., Cortes-Conde R. The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America: Volume 2, The Long Twentieth Century

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522 Otto T. Solbrig

both indigenous and nonindigenous workers by keeping the haciendas from

abusing their power in trying to capture the labor of the population through

debt peonage.

Independence brought to power the landed aristocracy based on the large

hacienda. It promptly changed many of the rules that protected agricultural

laborers. They also encroached on indigenous communities, appropriating

their land and turning them into hacienda laborers. So, whereas in 1854

there were approximately ﬁve thousand independent indigenous commu-

nities with their own land, language, and customs, by 1910,ontheeve of the

Mexican revolution, most of them had disappeared and more than 95 per-

cent of the rural population worked in the haciendas. This change allowed

the mobilization of Indian labor that was a condition for the growth of

Mexican agriculture. It had, of course, many negative consequences for the

individual welfare of the people involved.

It is estimated that in 1910 there were about eleven thousand haciendas in

Mexico, covering a surface of approximately eighty-eight million hectares,

with an average surface of 8,000 hectares per hacienda. Haciendas were

distinguished from ranchos, which were smaller establishments dedicated

mostly to cattle raising.

Working conditions varied in the haciendas according to location and

type of production. In the center and south of the country, where agricul-

tural production of export commodities prevailed (sugar, cotton, henequen)

and where there tended to be a surplus of labor, salaries and working condi-

tions were much worse than in the north of the country. Here, the emphasis

was on cattle raising that required fewer workers and there was a labor short-

age compared with the south. In the north, there also was the possibility

for laborers to emigrate to the United States if landowners abused their

power.

Different systems of production prevailed in the haciendas, and some-

times more than one. Basically, the owner of the hacienda could exploit

the hacienda himself or he could enter into different types of sharecropping

arrangements. Production for export was more likely to be done directly. In

such cases, the owner might live in the hacienda and administer it himself

or, more likely, he was an absentee owner and entrusted the running of the

hacienda to an administrator.

Sharecropping could be done by halves or by ﬁfths. In the ﬁrst case, the

proceeds of the harvest were shared equally; in the second case, the owner

kept three ﬁfths and the sharecropper, two ﬁfths. The hacienda usually

provided the land, the seed, and often the plow and oxen. In very dry

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Structure, Performance, and Policy in Agriculture 523

regions where growing conditions were marginal, haciendas occasionally

accepted arrangements that guaranteed them only one third of the harvest.

There were two types of laborers: peones libres, who worked for a salary

or as sharecroppers and often owned a small plot of land as well, and peones

acasillados, who lived in the hacienda and were permanently ascribed to

it. Salaries were very low and often workers were paid by chit redeemable

in the hacienda store. Owners advanced pay to their workers and made

them beholden to them for some time. By law, if a worker accepted a year’s

salary in advance, that person was obliged to work for the hacienda for the

rest of his life. This system produced a population of captive laborers who

could be and often were abused. The situation was worst in the southern

plantations of sugar, coffee, and henequen. In the latter ones, the local

indigenous population was for all practical purposes enslaved and forced

to work in what was a dangerous occupation.

During the Porﬁriato (the period of Mexican history between 1876 and

1911, when Porﬁrio D

ıaz was president most of the time), the Mexican

economy grew quite rapidly following the export-led development model

already explained. Production of export commodities – coffee, sugar, cot-

ton, henequen, and cattle – grew at a much faster rate than food staples,

especially maize and beans. So, for example, maize production went from

282 Kg per head in 1877 to only 144 Kg per head in 1977.Inthat same

period, henequen production in Yucatan increased by 300 percent. Cattle

raised in enormous ranches were exported to the United States for fattening

in the border states, primarily Texas. Railroads were constructed with U.S.

capital that facilitated the movement of goods to the United States.

In 1910, and following the fraudulent denial by the D

ıaz government

of the election victory of Francisco Madero, the opposition presidential

candidate, there occurred an armed insurrection that signaled the start of

the Mexican revolution. Armed conﬂicts of one sort or another would last

until 1928, when ﬁnally constitutional government was established.

An important aspect of the Mexican revolution was a quest for the return

of land that had been taken from indigenous people and small peasants by

the haciendas. It was enshrined in the slogan Tierra y Libertad of Emiliano

Zapata, the popular leader of the peasants of the state of Morelos. The

Mexican Constitution of 1917 decreed the breaking up of the haciendas

(many of which were destroyed during the uprising) and the return of the

land to peasants and indigenous people. The Constitution established two

types of land tenure: private property that could not exceed 100 hectares

and communal property known as ejidos (see previous section).

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524 Otto T. Solbrig

As a result of the turmoil of the Mexican revolution, it was not until the

time of the presidency of General L

azaro Cardenas in 1934–40 that agricul-

tural production reached the levels of 1910.Bythen, the production condi-

tions and the crop mixture had changed in favor of smallholders and with

agreater emphasis on foodstuffs for the internal market, especially maize

and beans, the basic staples of the Mexican diet. Yet the food situation was

quite precarious. The Mexican government, with help from international

donors, began a concerted research and education effort to increase agricul-

tural productionthat was quite successful. Production increased (Table 12.9)

for a number of commodities. New High Yielding Varieties of cereals were

introduced, and a number of irrigation projects were completed that sig-

niﬁcantly increased the cultivated area. Yet, after a few successful years,

in which agricultural production grew faster than population, production

growth declined and was unable to keep up with the population.

The failure of Mexico to feed itself is complex and space does not allow

a detailed analysis. For historical reasons rooted in the prerevolutionary

history of the country, Mexico’s rural sector has lacked the capacity to

adjust fast enough to changes in technology and means of production. It

is also constrained by its rugged terrain and unpredictable climate, with

either too much or not enough rain. Given the low returns of agriculture,

there has not been enough investment, giving rise to a vicious cycle.

The Mexican ejido that was set up as a legal entity by the Mexican

constitution was supposed to re-create pre-Hispanic forms of land tenure.

Because of the history of land expropriation by the landed oligarchy, the

Mexican Constitution decreed that ejidos could not be alienated, particu-

larly for debts. A community called an ejido held them in property. The

community divided the land among its members who normally farmed the

land individually. Because the land could not be alienated, it became almost

impossible to raise capital through mortgages. At the time ejidos were set

up, agriculture was mostly extensive, but as agriculture intensiﬁed in pri-

vate lands throughout Mexico, the ejido could not compete. Furthermore,

because of population growth, the surface of the ejido became divided into

more and more people. Eventually, the combination of insufﬁcient land

and a traditional approach to farming made ejidos noncompetitive. In the

1990s, the Mexican Constitution was amended to allow the sale of ejido

land. Ejidos also concentrated more than other establishments on the grow-

ing of staple foods, especially maize and beans.

The story of the failure of the ejido and the Mexican land reform to

make Mexico self-sufﬁcient in food is a sad story but also an important

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Table 12.9.

Mexican agricultural production (metric tons)

1961–2002

1961 1970 1980 1990 2000

2002 % change

Cotton

1,191,000 890,000 1,085,013 553,335

223,844 117,238

−90.16

Oil palm

253,000 140,000 84,000 25,414

83,000 110,000

−56.52

Rice

332,944 405,385 445,364 394,388

351,447 292,000

−12.30

Soybeans

19,737 214,603 322,205 575,366

102,314 127,000 543.46

Coffee

126,616 185,293 220,040 440,000

338,170 319,835 152.60

Beans

723,340 925,041 935,174 1,287,364

887,868 1,333,730 84.38

Oranges

772,382 1,254,682 1,743,212 2,220,338

3,812,683 4,526,510 486.05

Sorghum

290,641 2,747,210 4,689,445 5,978,159 5

,842,308 5,500,000 17,923.69

Citrus

971,681 1,627,154 2,667,218 3,187,783 6

,061,597 6,874,517 607.49

Corn

6,246,106 8,879,385 12,374,400 14,635,439 17

,556,900 19,000,000 204.19

Cereals

8,516,733 15,006,401 20,893,795 25,561,636 27,991

,417 29,114,225 241.85

Sugar

19,167,984 34,651,424 35,278,624 39,919,368 44,150

,000 46,000,000 139.98

Source:

FAO FOSTAT Database.

525

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526 Otto T. Solbrig

lesson. To overcome the abuses of the hacienda system in the nineteenth

century, land was overly subdivided during the ﬁrst half of the twentieth

century and could no longer serve the needs of intensive agriculture in the

second half of the century. Private producers who were also subjected to

upper limits in their holdings (that often were subverted with subterfuges)

became much more efﬁcient than the ejidos.

peru and peasant agriculture

Peru is the home of one of the oldest and most developed American

civilizations: that of the Incas. The Incas introduced into cultivation, among

other crops, cotton, potatoes, and peanuts, which are among the most

important contemporary crops. During colonial times, Peru was the home

to the Viceroyalty of Peru, which at one time stretched from Ecuador to

the R

ıo de la Plata. Lima was the entrep

ot for the silver from Potos

ı during

the Hapsburg period.

Geographically, Peru can be divided into three major regions. One is

the coastal zone. This is one of the driest areas anywhere on Earth and

agriculture is only possible with irrigation. Several rivers stream from

the Andean Cordillera and their waters have been utilized for irrigation

since pre-Columbian times. The second major region comprises the large

inter-Andean valleys, known in Peru as the region of the Sierra. Occu-

pied by a large Indian population, these valleys (e.g., Huancayo, Ayacucho,

Andahuailas, Cuzco) are occupied by large estates as well as by a large num-

ber of very small (minifundios) peasant farms. Finally, beyond the large and

imposing Cordillera de los Andes stretches the Amazon basin, until very

recently covered by a continuous and imposing tropical rainforest.

The Incas had developed a system of agriculture that made use of all

these zones, but especially the ﬁrst two. Cotton and other tropical crops

were cultivated in the coastal valleys under irrigation. Maize – their main

food staple – as well as beans, amaranth, and quinoa were cultivated in the

mountain valleys, whereas potatoes and other root crops were grown at

the highest altitudes of the Peruvian–Bolivian altiplano. Coca leaves were

the main product grown on middle elevations in the Amazonian slope. The

Spaniards maintained, to a large extent, these patterns of cultivation but

added some of their own crops to this mixture: sugar cane and grapes in

the coastal lowlands and wheat, together with maize, in the Sierra.

The economy of the Peruvian viceroyalty was affected negatively by the

Bourbon reforms. The loss of Potos

ı and its silver, which were incorporated

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Structure, Performance, and Policy in Agriculture 527

into the new viceroyalty of the R

ıo de La Plata deprived it of its principal

source of revenue, and the abandonment of Lima as the entrep

ot for the

shipment of goods via Panama to Cuba was another. Independence did not

alleviate this situation until the middle of the century, when the rich guano

deposits along the coast began to be exploited.

Because of the physical constraints of the country that limit agricultural

production, the export-led development could not rest on agriculture. Min-

ing – ﬁrst guano, then copper and other minerals, and even later oil – was

much more important than agriculture. Nevertheless, agriculture played a

role, especially the growing of sugar cane.

Along the coast of Peru north of Lima, conditions for growing sugar are

very favorable, provided there is irrigation water. As mentioned, a number

of rivers carry the meltdown from the Cordillera to the sea. These rivers

have a torrential behavior during the rainy months from December to

April but are only a trickle by the time they reach the coast during the

dry months. Consequently, a number of canals, some of them dating to

pre-Hispanic times, capture water at the foot of the mountains and carry

it to the coast. Since colonial times, large haciendas had captured most

of the land and especially the water rights. Sugar had not been the only

crop; grapes, cotton, and cattle were also important products. The other

problem for the sugar estates was labor. Indian labor during colonial times

proved insufﬁcient, so African slaves were imported. In 1854, slaves were

emancipated. Emancipation beneﬁted sugar planters because they were

paid 300 pesos per emancipated person.

Demand for sugar rose considerably in Europe and the United States

during the second half of the nineteenth century. This coincided with

the end of the guano boom in Peru. The capital that had been invested

in the export of guano was now chieﬂy invested in coastal agriculture

and especially in sugar production. Both Peruvian capitalists and recently

arrived immigrants entered the trade. A sugar boom followed, with all the

characteristics seen in other countries: the consolidation of a sugar elite

that controlled land and labor and especially water rights and played an

important role in national politics. A shortage of labor developed that was

supplied in part by the importation of indentured workers from China and

Japan. Yet, by the onset of World War I, the demand for sugar grew at a

slower rate than the increase in world output, bringing an end to the sugar

boom.

The sugar boom helped to create savings that were invested in other

sectors of the economy. It also helped create personal fortunes and political

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528 Otto T. Solbrig

Table 12.10. Production (metric tons) of selected

commodities in Peru (1961–2001)atﬁve-year intervals

Sugar Maize Wheat

1961 8,100,000 340,037 153,595

1966 9,002,009 581,008 145,002

1971 8,777,762 616,368 122,225

1976 9,227,137 725,659 127,497

1981 5,653,755 590,805 116,678

1986 7,010,300 876,307 121,143

1991 6,500,000 659,779 87,275

1996 6,700,000 810,460 146,152

2001 8,000,000 1,315,870 181,877

Source: FAOFAOSTAT Database.

dynasties. They also consolidated the hold on land and water in the coastal

valleys by the landed elite. Sugar production – as in Cuba – was mechanized

and consolidated, with small and inefﬁcient producers being taken over by

the larger and more efﬁcient ones.

In the 1970s, the military government of General Velasco Alvarado

nationalized the sugar estates and distributed the land to smallholders.

Sugar production was collectivized, yet lack of research and capital invest-

ments led to an important reduction of yields, so that although sugar surface

was increased, there was a small decrease in production.

The land reform was an attempt to resolve a serious problem in Peruvian

agriculture. In effect, export sectors such as sugar and cotton have modern-

ized throughout the long twentieth century and kept up with international

standards, whereas domestic agriculture has remained stagnant and increas-

ingly unable to supply the country’s food needs.

Since 1950, the population of Peru has quadrupled from seven to twenty-

seven million persons. Only the production of rice, a staple of the Peruvian

diet, grown under irrigation in the coastal enclaves, increased by the same

amount during the period. Maize, the other important staple and a typical

product of the Sierra region, only tripled, whereas wheat production barely

doubled and bean production increased by a scant 50 percent (Table 12.10).

Consequently, the food situation in Peru has been unsatisfactory – it is the

South American country with the lowest average calorie intake per person.

Only Haiti and Nicaragua have a lower average caloric intake then Peru in

Latin America. Malnutrition among the poorer strata of the population is

very serious. Because much food production takes place in the Sierra area

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Structure, Performance, and Policy in Agriculture 529

and is largely produced by peasant agriculture, the problem in Peru has

racial and social as well as economic ramiﬁcations.

It must be remembered also that access to food is a questionof income and

prices.

In an open economy, prices are set by the international market.

Aproducer will always sell to the highest bidder and that is usually the

international market. As the income of the poor deteriorates in relation to

world prices, their capacity to purchase food diminishes. Because the poor

spend a much larger percentage of purchases of food in relation to income,

they are impacted more than the rest of the population when food prices

increase.

Much has been written regarding “peasant” agriculture in Latin America.

This term is confusing and misleading. There is no doubt a sector of farmers

in Latin America that work small plots that can be less than a hectare. Many

of them are descendants of the indigenous population and their farming

techniques often contain elements inherited from pre-Colombian times. A

good example are Mayan farmers in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, who still

practice the ancient milpa system of corn cultivation. But these traditional

techniques and customs coexist with elements of European origin, such

as plows, oxen, metal tools, and introduced crops such as wheat. Seeds

are likely to be from improved varieties, but not always. Bolivian potato

farmers cultivate a mixture of white potatoes and local varieties, the latter

mostly for home consumption. These smallholders, or minifundistas,are

almost always connected to a market economy in many ways. The need

to pay taxes and obtain cash forces these farmers to produce a surplus for

the market. They are, therefore, not equivalent to the traditional European

peasant.

This farming population is considerable in Peru and other Andean coun-

tries such as Ecuador and Bolivia, although the area farmed by them is less

than that in commercial agriculture. Their yields can be high because they

apply a lot of labor and farm the land very intensively. They lack capi-

tal and the small plots they farm usually produce enough to permit the

survival of the farmer’s family but leaves no room for savings. Their plots

are too small and their farming techniques inappropriate given the present

economic environment to produce a salable surplus. They also are poorly

connected to commercialization networks. Furthermore, the class cleav-

ages in Peru, with their racial overtones inherited from colonial times, have

created a great deal of distrust that is often a barrier to communication.

Finally, there is also a long history of land disputes among indigenous

A. Sen, Poverty and Famines (London, 1984).

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530 Otto T. Solbrig

communities, haciendas, and mining concerns. More powerful actors have

pushed smallholders increasingly into poor marginal lands.

Society has a special regard for the small farmer, which has been roman-

ticized by writers from Thomas Jefferson to Wendell Berry as the steward of

nature and the bulwark of democracy. Others – especially landed interests –

consider small producers nonviable and ignorant. But “peasant farmers” in

Latin America are neither great stewards of nature nor are they ignorant,

although they almost always are poor. These farmers have been left out

from a process of farming modernization because of their meager holdings

and lack of capital. Critics who argue that these small farms are nonviable

often do not consider alternatives.

Some holdings are indeed too small. In the highlands of Peru, some

farmers only own one or two furrows. These people hold on to the land,

but make a living selling their labor to the larger farms. But farms in the

range of ten to ﬁfty hectares are perfectly viable for growing certain crops,

such as coffee, fruits, or vegetables. Smallholders require assistance with

farming methods, ways to protect land from erosion and degradation, and

commercializing their crops. Intermediaries often capture much of the value

of their produce.

International agencies as well as national research agencies are trying to

protect small farmers to increase their output, helping them to hold on

to their land and capture most of the value of what they produce. Many

peasant farmers lack means to transport their produce to market and have

to rely on middlemen who offer only a small part of the price the farmer

could obtain if he could sell directly in the market. In cases in which the

plots farmed are too small to maintain a family, cooperative arrangements

are needed to capture some economies of scale.

The hopeless situation of many small Peruvian farmers have led them to

abandon agriculture and move to the coast, especially Lima, in search of

urban employment. There, they swell the large population of the shanty-

towns surrounding the capital. Others have moved into the Amazon basin,

to start afresh in some of the valleys at the eastern foot of the Cordillera,

such as the Hualaga valley. Many have turned to growing illicit drug plants

that, although a risky proposition, offer a high return.

the push into the amazon basin

Latin America has the largest reserves of arable land of any area in the

world. However, most of it is covered with rich and diverse tropical

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Structure, Performance, and Policy in Agriculture 531

forests that are also worth preserving. Consequently, a conﬂict has arisen

between the interests of conservationists in preserving the forest and agri-

cultural interests that wish to develop it. With the growth of the popu-

lation in Latin America, the conﬂict has become quite acute. Large areas

of forests in tropical Mexico and Central and South America that once

were covered with lush forests are now dedicated to agriculture or, more

often, cattle raising. Nowhere is this conﬂict better illustrated than in

Brazil.

In 1838, Charles Goodyear invented the process of vulcanization of rub-

ber. Until then, rubber had limited uses because it became brittle when cold

or wet. Vulcanization opened the way for the fabrication of rubber tires

used ﬁrst in bicycles and later in automobiles. To say that without rubber

tires the automobile could not have been invented is not an exaggeration.

At the time, the only signiﬁcant source of rubber was the latex of the rub-

ber tree, Heveabrasiliensis. This majestic tree was found in the Amazon for-

est growing as isolated individuals. Tappers or siringueiros cut trails through

the forests of the western Amazon, each of them connecting some 60 to

150 trees, the maximum that a person could tap in a day. The locations of

these trails were kept secret. The trunks of the trees were tapped at each

visit that took place every other day during the harvest season. Because the

latex stopped ﬂowing after about twenty-four hours, trees had to be tapped

at each visit. Heating the juice over a forest ﬁre then coagulated it into

large rubber balls. These were then transported at the end of the tapping

season by open canoe to ports on the Amazon River, principally Manaus

and Belem. From there, they were shipped to Europe and the United States

for processing.

Tappers worked for rubber dealers called aviadores,orforwarders, who

furnished on credit and at high price food and supplies for six months

in the jungle on condition that the tapper sell all his rubber to him and

accept only his goods. On return from the jungle, the costs of supplies

were deducted from the value of the rubber. Because this system was easily

abused, normally tappers obtained very little monetary beneﬁt. Capital

requirements, even so, were high. The aviadores,inturn, were beholden

to capitalists who advanced the needed money. These capitalists controlled

the export of rubber. Huge fortunes were made in the thirty years before

World War I that transformed Belem and Manaus from sleepy towns into

rich tropical emporiums.

However, the boom did not last long. Seeds were taken from Brazil and

planted in different parts of the British Empire, most notably in Malaya.