Escaping Rural Poverty
Walking 12 miles to sell a few bundles of firewood cut from the diminishing acres of woodland.
Two or three weeks ago, readers sent in some fascinating reflections on Mexico’s future and particularly the future of its rural poor in the comments on this post.
I’ve been putting off replying, in part because I’m no expert on Mexican sociology, in part because only a portion of my readers are interested.
But I thought I would frame it in a more general context, that of the great movement of the last hundred and fifty years from a rural to urban populations, from farming as the major occupation to farming as the specialty of a few.
As a historian, I find it hard to think of any country that has managed this transition gracefully, though perhaps the United States, with its bountiful resources did better than most. Often though poverty in urban slums seemed worse at least for a generation, often it meant migrating to places on the other side of the world, in happy cases as a free migrant, in less happy cases as an indentured laborer or some grade of slave. Always the worry was “how will we be fed?” “What will they do in the cities?” “What about the loss of a way of life?”
As an individual, though, I am one of millions who made this transition, one who is almost certainly better off for having made it, and one who would not want to go back to a life of toil on the land.
And that’s why, although the circumstances of the rural poor in my region of Mexico are very different from my privileged circumstances on a large farm in England, and because of the industrial corridor just to the south of this region of Mexico is very different from remoter rural regions such as Chiapas or Oaxaca, I am hopeful when I look at what is happening.
Most of the rural poor in this area have plots of land on marginal land, too small to mechanize, too small to raise capital, up in the hills so that irrigation is an impossibility, in areas where rains fail on average one year in seven.
Many of them are taking steps to diversity their income, little steps, it’s true, but ones that do make them less vulnerable. These include:
- remittances from a family member in the United States. Very important in the past, less so now that the cost of the border crossing means that you have to stay in the US for several years if you want to recoup your costs and send money back. A link to the finances of this in 2007.
- some small government scholarships for their children under programs whose names change ever few years. Perhaps only a few tens of dollars a month, but the source of great pride as well as a bit of a cushion.
- working in modern (aka industrial agriculture) that pays wages competitive with the US when you consider the costs of getting to and living in the US or as bricklayers, good in recent years because of the building boom that Mexico has experienced, though this is not likely to continue.
- working for the government, for the electric company or the water company, or the like, not great pay but social security and cheap loans.
- working as domestic servants, a way forward for women in many cultures and although not well paid and at times demeaning, often with additional benefits of loans, cast offs, help with children’s education and so on
- small businesses as gardeners, carpenters, seamstresses, beauticians, etc. Here I think loans are really useful. A hundred or couple of hundred dollars for a weed whacker or electric saw or sewing machine or hair dryer and manicure set sets you up. Or a small corner shop or taco stand, often financed by a beer company.
- side lines, particularly for women, in food–birthday cakes, ice creams, gorditas, and so on, or in travel–bus tours to pilgrimage sites or swimming pools, or in sales–Avon is alive and well in Mexico and dozens of other catalog sales, yes I know these are often pyramid schemes but they teach certain skills and many women make some money from them. For men, music is a good sideline and most villages seem to have at least one group with a truck and loudspeakers to go to baptisms, weddings, etc
- selling a bit of your land for that building boom now that it is possible to get title. Only possible near cities but a wonderful source of capital.
- help from your children now educated through high school and working as a cashier in a grocery store or a receptionist in a dentist’s office. Low wages but real money, often social security, new skills, and sometimes a chance to advance.
Put all this together and in villages round here people expect to eat meat on a regular basis, have electricity, a television, gas stove and refrigerator, and to have at least one member of the extended family with a telephone or celular and another with a pick up truck so that they can make a monthly visit to a mega store to buy laundry soap and cooking oil at a good price as well as enjoying a day out.
Expectations are increasing apace as every family knows what life is like in the US and what it can be like in Mexico according to the telenovelas. Family size is rarely above two or three children. And skills are also increasing apace: every family has someone who can speak passable English, text message, drive, understand how a loan works including compound interest, and handle a computer.
I’m focusing on the up side. Yes it could all go terribly wrong with the economic problems, the narcos, flu, a looming drought, and a political system that continues to favor the rich.
But it seems to me these are just the kinds of steps that now, as in the past, allow families to make a transition to a more fulfilling, more secure, more independent, and more prosperous life. Eking out an existence on a few remote hectares of parched white soil in the hills is not only bad for the environment, it just doesn’t allow for almost all the kinds of personal fulfillment that anyone reading this blog would take for granted.
rural people in crete live in much the same way as you have described in your list – not much different for farmers all voer the world
with entry to the eu, tighter controls over production and loss of subsidies, there is little leeway if cretan farmers want to remain farmers
Not all farmers, Maria, surely. I don’t see farmers in the US or Argentina or England living this way. The question is how can rural people have decent lives.
Let me give you another angle… in which rural poor around Guanajuato could improve their quality of life.
Leon,GTO… leather goods capital of Mexico. The expertise & quality of Leon’s leather goods is comparable to that of Spain & Italy… yet those two European countries (particularly Italy) have the prestige to export all over the world and move up the value-added chain. What have they done that Mexico hasn’t? Italy built up an entire fashion industry around Milan. Mexico could emulate this success by:
1) Creating a Pueblos Magicos corridor around Leon & the Sierra Gorda with support for Hacienda Resort type tourism
2) Fomenting an Advertising, Marketing, Tourism & Fashion core competency among Leon’s Univeristies
3) Establish Leon (and or nearby Pueblos Magicos as the focal point of Senorita Mexico and other fashion industry events)
4) Foment culinary educations & help consolidate a fashionable regional cuisine around the native ingredients
As Leon builds up its Value-Added, Info rich, experiental industries… it will create better paying jobs… propelling the current blue collar middle class into more of the global, trendy middle class… with its own demand for fashion, style & beautiful people… gyms & vegetable laden foods.. the farmers of Guanajuato’s arid highlands could make a better living producing Nopales, Asparagus & other arid land vegetables.
Agreed Juan and indeed León is very much on the move on many of these fronts–gastronomy programs, smartening up the leather district, creating more cultural capital, doing furniture as well, particularly leather furniture. And there is, as you know, massive in-migration to León. I find it an exciting city though I’m not always in love with the politics.
My focus, though, was on what the rural poor can do on their own behalf rather than waiting for government or industry to help.
True, our farmers, no matter how ‘poor’ they are, have a higher standard of living. For example, they don’t walk 12 miles a day to sell firewood. The average Cretan farmer used to walk 20 kilometres a day 50 years ago; now he drives on average 20 kilometres a day around his farming area instead.
Rachel, this post is terribly interesting. I was wondering if anyone has set up a system for making micro-loans to Mexican women, like in India?
Secondly, I’m currently reading Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. The story of the American dust bowl farm families is a devastating episode in American rural history. I recommend it for perspective.
Yes, there are a whole variety of them. I loved Grapes of Wrath but do know that lots of historians have trouble with it. I need to try to find those critiques. Have you seen them, Kyri?
What can the rural poor do on their own?
1) Use their new found internet skills to contact Rancho Gordo about buying Heirloom beans
2) Acquire the technical skills used to grow & refine Coca
=)
The real solution is to put together all the tools at their disposal…
> Acquired knowledge by emigrant relatives abroad to figure out what they have that is marketable to the cash rich of North America
> Leverage Micro loans that are now much more widely available
One thing to keep in mind with respect to the challenge facing rural poor everywhere is the Assymetric Transfer of Knowledge & Technology from the Advanced to Developing societies.
Specifically… you get wealthy doctors in North America & Europe who are compelled to go save lives in Africa & Latin America etc., but you don’t get wealthy executives & business people who are compelled to similarly share their knowledge with those people… so as mortality rates drop in the developing world, populations skyrocket at a much faster rate than they can acquire the knowledge to generate wealth & increase food production.
Its a very difficult problem created by well meaning, but ignorant people in rich societies… juxtaposed by the uncaring, ignorance of the decadent capitalist classes… and not easy to surpass for rural poor without help from industry & government.
Agree the rural poor can’t do everything themselves. But I think waiting for handouts has been encouraged for half a century. So it’s really good to see a more positive attitude to the future. So I would hate to say the rural poor can do nothing on their own.
And I think I have shown lots of small things that they can and are doing. By the way, Steve Sando can’t deal with people at this level. And yes, drugs are there.
Looking at the chap with the donkey reminds me of lots of historical images from the UK, especially women well past their fifth decade bowed under the weight of huge faggots.
I should think that about 50- 100 years separates the widespread rural poor from decadent decadent capitalism. Not such a long time. Are there emerging Agricultural co-operatives in Mexico? Some of the largest food enterprises in the world started off, and in many cases remain, co-operatives. Would seem like a logical step?
It’s a really sad story. The people with the donkeys come from the mountains where there is no employment. If it’s not wood, it’s charcoal or sand or branches for nativity scenes at Christmas. You see them age from brave young men to toothless elders in about fifteen years.
To Adam… actually the Green Revolution and modern Agricultural true co-ops (not to be confused with the big agri-business tax shelters in the U.S. like the one I was once employed by) began in Mexico… and while they allowed Mexico to feed its population & export abroad at a time of explosive population growth coupled with mass emigration from the country side… they haven’t quite proven to be the solution… I haven’t researched the causes in any depth.
But my hunch is that technology transfer from the U.S. to Mexico actually happens too fast… such that medical innovations in the U.S. spread throughout Mexico almost as fast as the spread throught the U.S. interior… and new technologies are imported before the locals can build up a core competency.
So in the big picture… this technology transfer that has consistently reduced mortality rates in Mexico (for example life expectancy is almost the same as in the U.S.) happens so fast, that even with emigration & policy successes (such as Ag Coops & the Green Revolution)… the rural poor just can’t get unpoor.
As always, Juan, there is lots to reply to. I’m happy to agree that the Green Revolution began in Mexico. Co-ops? I’m not so sure unless you count ejidos as coops.
I’m not sure how to read your second paragraph. Do you want to deny access to new medical technologies in Mexico?
And no, the rural poor can’t just get unpoor. But they can get access to information and get smart. And that’s happening fast. And that means a beer and a sandwich is not going to buy political loyalty.
RL… Ag Coops emerged in Mexico in the Huasteca during the late 1800’s as Indigenous Communities pooled resources to build sugar mills that refined product that “gentlemen” marketed & exported to the U.S.
They make a greater presence during the Green Revolution when Indigenous Communities as well as Mestizo & Poor Criollo Ejidetarios pooled resources to acquire Pesticides, Grain Mills, Silos & to build Dams etc., They are most common in mountainous regions of Southern Mexico where
1) Cash Crops such as Chocolate, Vanilla & Coffee could be grown
2) And where land ownership was more common among Indigenous communities than Criollo Haciendas
However, even in the highlands of Jalisco – known as La Cuenca Lechera – small scale dairy farmers joined Co Ops to obtain greater returns. For example in the 60’s, my mom’s family had a small farm with some Ejido lands & they owned 5 to 10 milk producing cows. By joining the local Ag Coop they were able to purchase alfalfa / cattle feed that was standardized for high milk yield at below retail prices. Everyday the Co Op trucks would come pick up their 40 liter aluminum cans (and drop off clean, empty ones in exchange)… and they received weekly or monthly advances (estimated payments)… either 1 or 2 a year they attended a Co Op conference in Lagos de Moreno where they learned of the Co Ops financial results & got their dividends (Profits generated from operating the Processing plant, distribution & sales effort).
Very interesting Juan. Specially the part about your family’s experience with a coop. That seems to have worked well. But milk coops in general don’t seem to have done as well in Mexico as in (say) India, or at least that is my impression.
Rachel, Kiri, Juan, Adam:
These are extremely complicated questions with no easy answers.
Kiri, google ‘micro loans in Mexico’ for a lot of information that addresses your question. The short answer is ‘yes’.
All over Latin America, MiPyME offers assistance to micro, small and medium-size businesses, and statistically, over 90% of all businesses in Mexico fall in the category of micro, small and medium-size businesses.
For those of you who read Spanish, the following two links will provide some information.
http://www.siem.gob.mx/portalsiem/ley_pyme/articulos.asp
http://www.economia.gob.mx/?P=7000
Mind you, MiPyME is a government program and as such has the inherent problems that plague all Mexican government programs: how is the money allocated, where does the money really go, etc. It’s impossible to answer those questions by reading either website. The letter of the law in Mexico is often far, far removed from the actual application of the law.
The Byzantine regulations required to start a legitimate business in Mexico have all but forced a large percentage–nearly half of all Mexicans–to work under the radar.
It’s easy to say, *well, they should do this*…or *well, they should do that*, but the ultimate execution of this or that is nigh onto impossible. What marginalized campesino has the ability to collect 5000 or even 500 pesos, has the literacy necessary to fill out the paperwork, has the *TIME*, in amongst providing family sustenance, to start his own vanilla-growing business?
Standard operating procedure is every man for himself, or thinking, “I’ll use any means necessary to push the other guy down so I can leverage myself up,” while the other guy is saying exactly the same thing. No one achieves anything. A co-op would be ideal, but until the average campesino can change his/her true mentality from “lo que Dios nos mande” to “SI SE PUEDE”, little in Mexico will change.
Cristina
A short article in La Voz de Michoacán this morning quotes the head of adult education in Mexico has saying, “One out of every three Mexicans has only basic education [primary school or less] and does not know how to read or write.”
I mention this to offer validation to the second-to-the-last paragraph in my comment just above.
Hey Cristina… what do you think of Calderon’s recent unveiling of web based, streamlined method to start a corporation in Mexico. Are you seeing any movement on the ground yet? Do enough entrepreneurs have the internet skills & access to use the web method?