Outlook of ejidos and agrarian communities in Mexico

Abstract

The ejidos and agrarian communities are the form of land tenure that covers most of the surface in the Mexican countryside; these offer important agricultural and livestock production and most of the hills, forest areas, mangroves, coasts, water, mines and various natural attractions are in their lands. However, little is known about their general characteristics, so this article presents the main features of these forms of land tenure and a broad outlook of their current situation (based fundamentally on the analysis of the last ejido census). These types of property have a great economic and ecological potential; however, most of them have many shortages that make agricultural/livestock and forestry production difficult. Also, they are not homogeneous because they present considerable disparities in their allotment of resources, to the degree that only one fourth of them have adequate productive conditions, with ejidos and communities being the main form of land tenure in México; likewise, they house the largest part of the rural population. Government policies (economic and social) should be directed fundamentally towards these, since they have a huge capacity for production and for generating environmental services, although what is lacking for their development is state support.