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Further Analysis of the Mexican Food Crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

John R. Heath
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A large and influential body of work has been published on the recent transformation of Mexican agriculture, focusing on how the growth of linkages to the international economy has reallocated Mexico's land and labor resources in a way that threatens the survival of peasant forms of food production. Curiously, the working assumptions of this corpus have remained largely unchallenged in the academic literature. The thrust of this approach is well captured in an article published in LARR by David Barkin and Billie DeWalt a few years ago. These authors were seeking to explain the origins of Mexico's “food crisis” and made a series of recommendations for tackling the problem. Although many of Barkin and DeWalt's observations are irrefutable, the framework of their analysis begs a number of questions, and elements within it are mutually inconsistent. Their work merits close attention nonetheless because, unlike much of the literature on the “food crisis,” it goes beyond analysis of the problem to make fairly explicit policy recommendations. Because their recommendations are so out of line with the present thrust of Mexican policy, it is instructive to return to their article. Their contribution exemplifies a paradigm that, in rejecting trade liberalization, fails to lend itself to constructive criticism of the policies now being vigorously pursued in Mexico. In challenging Barkin and DeWalt's analytical framework and policy recommendations (from a standpoint that is sympathetic toward trade liberalization), this research note is intended to provoke a lively debate about new ways to conceptualize Mexican food issues.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , 1992 , pp. 123 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the University of Texas Press

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