Chapter 6 - Historical evolution of institutions and public policies for sustainable food security in Mexico: continuities and ruptures
p. 153-176
Texte intégral
Introduction
1Government focus on the food requirements of the Mexican population dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, in the context of the first governments carrying out post-revolutionary national reconstruction. Food plans and programs in Mexico arose at specific junctures (natural, social, economic and political crises) with effects on food security and nutrition (Barquera, Rivera & Gasca, 2001), with the aim of meeting specific requirements (social assistance, school breakfasts, promotion of the production of staple foods, milk and meat products). This was mainly due to the rapid urbanization and gradual population growth experienced by the country’s main cities. This is one of the central facts in the definition of food policies in Mexico: the greater the number of inhabitants concentrated in cities, the greater the requirements and strategies for meeting supply needs; the greater the marginal population and the greater the nutritional lags in both rural and urban areas, the greater and broader the requirements for social coverage policies and programs.
2A lag exists in Mexico with regard to ensuring access to sufficient and healthy food for the marginalized rural population. Since the year 2000, obesity and other related diseases have worsened and have permeated the lower-income strata, affecting more than 70% of the country’s adult population. The situation is critical in rural areas as a result of the lack of quality health services for the prevention, diagnosis and timely treatment of these conditions (Ávila, Flores & Rangel, 2011).
3This chapter aims to present the historical sequence under which the Mexican agrifood system has been instituted. It will address the transcendental socio-political and economic processes in the national history and the specific conjunctures where diverse actors, governmental and social organizations, established agreements, dynamics, negotiations, conflicts and disputes, present in the conformation of the institutions responsible for managing and constructing the diverse processes for feeding the population and, at the same time, creating the conditions for the insertion of small producers (family and peasant economies) within this system. A socio-political system that, even though the food issue has been considered central to its agenda, has incorporated nutritional and public health issues on a gradual basis.
4The development of the agrifood system in Mexico has always been characterized by the constant presence of the state intitutions, as the guiding institution of economic and social development, from which policies and/or programs have been created to meet the needs of the population. Governmental interventions have, from the outset, always been characterized by their welfare-based approach, given the widespread poverty in most post-revolutionary urban and rural societies. In the post-war period, with the Mexican economy undergoing significant growth, the Mexican State became a benefactor and, at the same time, adopted a clientelistic approach characterized by political control in relation to its interaction with Mexican rural communities. Their demands were met, especially at election time, and their requests for land and participation in the rural dynamic, which was biased in favor of agricultural companies, were temporarily resolved. After the crisis of capitalism in the 1970s, poverty became a constant among small producers and peasant communities, and Mexican food programs were integrated into broader social welfare programs to address serious problems of malnutrition and lack of school coverage for rural children. Since then, rural development programs have been used as a palliative measure to address the marginality of peasant groups.
5As of 2019, Mexico has undergone a change of government, shifting from those constituted from the corporatist model to a different one, which has initially identified poverty as its central priority and therefore key to the orientation of its policies, including rural policies. The challenge is even greater, as there is a need to act within corporatized institutions with structural vices that have served to maintain political control over peasant organizations. At this point, therefore, the analysis of this change of government includes more uncertainties than certainties. The new government proposes a different model where peasant societies revitalize traditional farming systems (the milpa) in the face of forms and models that prioritize productivity. What is required from the institutions that will promote a more egalitarian and sustainable agrifood system in terms of production and trade? How do peasant organizations position themselves here? How can a sustainable agrifood system, linked to addressing nutritional lag, be constructed? Which roles and strategies will the various social actors adopt in this new scenario? Which mechanisms strengthen the constitution of an authentic territorial governance in an agrifood system that differs from the traditional, historic ones? What roles should peasant organizations play in the resolution of conflicts, disputes and negotiations with governmental actors and institutions?
6These are central questions that need to be clarified for the reorientation of a food production system that aims to be inclusive and democratic, while having a positive impact on the economy and welfare of small- and medium-scale rural producers – eternally marginalized within the countryside context – incorporating a focus on public health problems (obesity, diabetes and other diseases), which has permeated into the lower income strata and already affects more than 70% of the nation’s adult population, as part of the national agenda (Ávila et al., 2011).
The New Historical Institutionalism as a framework of analysis in the constitution of food policies
7The creation of a system to meet food requirements is a fundamental process within rural, social and nutritional-health public policies. Food production and supply needs have led to the emergence of historically constituted institutions, the product of vicissitudes, negotiations and exchanges between political actors. In Mexico, it has been a matter of welfare needs being covered by a national State that, through subsidies, has provided access to basic foodstuffs to large sectors of the impoverished population in a context of the national reconstruction of a country that experienced a violent revolution in the second decade of the 20th century. An institutional order therefore began to be developed that, based on major events and other social processes of transcendent magnitude (a second agrarian reform under Cardenismo, 1934–1940), positioned food production at the center of its priorities, as an element that would contribute to the reduction of economic inequality within the country.
8Through government interventions at different historical moments, the foundations were laid for the emergence of institutions dedicated to the construction of public policies. The existence of a food system was sustained, which, through strategies and programs at specific junctures, has tried to ensure the national demand for food. According to Farfán (2007), crucial historical phenomena are decisive for the success of a project that aspires to become an institutionalized policy. The different historical moments that have marked the construction of the national food system has involved the participation of different actors and social groups, formal and informal associations of individuals, agricultural entrepreneurs and landowners, organizations with party affiliation, pressure groups, trade unions, and even international organizations (for example, scientific groups and capitalized farmers, promoters of the green revolution), which influenced the decision making of governmental bodies (Ibid.).
9New Institutionalism (NI) is a current of thought that considers rules, norms and identities as instruments of stability and change scenarios. It regards institutions as independent and autonomous actors, capable of pursuing their own objectives and, in doing so, affecting society based on the view of collective action as the aggregation of calculated individual decisions (March & Olsen, 1984, cited by Torres, 2015). NI illustrates how political struggles are mediated by inherent institutional settings that contribute to defining institutions as formal organizations, informal rules and procedures that structure behavior (Steinmo, Thelen & Longstreth, 1992).
10There are different trends and/or variants of New Institutionalism; however, the most recurrent are those identified by Hall and Taylor (1996): historical NI, rational choice NI and sociological NI. For the purposes of this chapter, the approach of historical New Institutionalism is considered in order to characterize the temporal evolution and succession of processes and phenomenologies from which a food system has been constituted in Mexico. This current supports the processes and mechanisms through which rural policies, and, specifically, those related to food production, emerge and become institutionalized. A central role is given to the processes of gestation and adoption of political decisions in their historical evolution and sequence (Farfán, 2007).
11The new historical institutionalism views institutions as the legacy of specific historical processes. They are generally considered to maintain long periods of stability and institutional arrangements, which can be interrupted by brief, intense and profound changes (Thelen, n.d.).
12Two concepts are central to the corpus of the new historical institutionalism, namely, that of path dependence, which considers that new institutions should emerge on the basis of already existing institutional models, with defined interests of the actors, where differentiated spaces and positions of power are manifested, which are reflected both in the shaping of public policies and in institutional change. The second, related to critical junctures, considers that institutional creation and/or emergence comes from changes based on discontinuities or interruptions within social processes, in established institutional spaces that result in new institutions and political structures (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010, cited by Torres, 2015).
13Under these guidelines, this chapter considers the conformation of a food system in Mexico, as social actions have been constituted on the basis of a permanent historical dynamic in terms of intervention mechanisms, participation and bargaining power of the actors. The process has peculiarities in Mexico, since most of the social organizations in rural areas, those of small producers and peasant economies, have been permanently subject to political and clientelistic control by the governments in office. Thus, rural public policies have always been biased in favor of large agricultural enterprises. This does not necessarily mean the paralysis of actors and struggles or social processes, although the actions of peasant and workers’ social movements during different historical eras has had a limited effect on the formation of institutions dedicated to food production and supply.
Small-scale producers and farmers, marginal actors in food policies
14In the case of Mexico, state institutions have played a fundamental role in the design and implementation of public food policies. Perhaps uniquely in Latin America, the political system functioned for 70 years on the basis of solid corporate mechanisms, through which it exercised strict control and political clientelism over peasant movements and organizations. This was the case of the National Peasant Confederation (CNC), established during the Cardenista government in the 1930’s, which was co-opted by subsequent governments and the agreements reached in the meetings of the peasant associations did not transcend to the grassroots. Despite this situation, there were some independent movements and struggles that did affect local transcendence and limited action in the construction of rural and food public policies. Other independent peasant organizations, created in response to the intense agrarian dynamics of Cardenismo, the General Union of Workers and Peasants of Mexico (UGOCEM), as well as the Independent Peasant Center (CCI), brought together sectors of the peasantry that were on the margins of official control. Due to their political positioning and their ongoing involvement in land disputes and struggles, they had restricted access to credit and material support for agricultural production. Their territorial impact was minor, as they were mainly based in the areas of large agricultural enterprises, where economic and political power exercised effective control.58 The post-war governments, which promoted the “modernization” of the Mexican economy based on intense technified agricultural activity, assigned a marginal place to peasant family producers (ejidatarios and agrarian communal farmers), because “large agricultural capitalists figured prominently among the political support bases of the incumbent president” (Hewitt, 2007). Caciques, oligarchic figures who exercised an archaic system of economic and political power, played a fundamental role in these political control mechanisms, where usury, extortion and land dispossession were their main forms of enrichment and political power. They frequently influenced the election of associated local authorities (Ibid.).
Historical evolution of food policies
15Throughout the different stages of economic and social development, the food issue has been at the center of the agenda of government agencies concerned with rurality. Table 6.1 details the particularities of the policies and programs instituted.
16The official incidence dates back to the 1920s, when actions assumed a charitable and/or welfare approach (Barquera et al., 2001) with the provision of breakfasts and food supplies to impoverished urban sectors. Subsidies for agricultural production were also granted in order to improve livestock production. To channel such aid, popular cooperatives, systems and savings banks were set up to promote agricultural and livestock activities (Ibid.).
17These initiatives continued during the 1930s, through programs of indirect access to food, by means of subsidies on the price of basic foodstuffs (initially corn and beans) for workers in the cities. The governmental period corresponding to President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940) established or provided guidelines for the active participation of workers’ and peasants’ organizations in the construction of public policies, in a country that was still being rebuilt in the wake of a revolutionary movement (1910–1918), which was highly detrimental for the population, the economy and the territory. To that end, the Cardenista government implemented core actions to continue the national reconstruction process: i) a new and comprehensive agrarian reform, where the land and the assistance to work it had greater scope and benefits for the peasant ejido societies; ii) the strengthening of the national infrastructure (road system, irrigation and electrification), which would enable isolated rural regions to access the circuits of the national economy; iii) the intervention of social organizations in the commercial management of basic products and subsistence for the popular classes; iv) the promotion of the mechanization of national agriculture, as part of the national development planning (Six-Year Plans).59
18The most far-reaching policies regarding agricultural production and the strengthening of the food system were the creation of the National Storage Warehouses (ANDSA), the Regulatory Committee of Wheat Markets (CRMT) and the Regulatory Committee of Popular Subsistence Markets, forerunner of the National Company of Popular Subsistence (CONASUPO), of great importance in later years for the national food supply (Barquera et al., 2001). In terms of food supply, the Regulatory Committee of Subsistence Markets was established in 1938, in order to protect rural producers and consumers. Actions were carried out through workers’ and peasants’ organizations, which operated cooperative stores and collection centers with government support (Ibid., 85); in the 1950s, official guaranteed prices were established for basic products (corn, beans, rice, wheat), which ensured profitability in production and regulated market prices against speculation. Subsidy programs for the low-income population were strengthened, such as the school breakfast program (Esteva, 1980; Barquera et al., 2001).
Table 6.1. Historical evolution of food policies in Mexico
Period |
Program and/or policy |
Objectives |
Social and economic actions and impacts |
Linked social programs |
Actors involved |
1920–1930 Post-revolutionary national reconstruction |
Various support programs; Production subsidy |
Consumer support; Increase and improvement of agricultural and livestock production |
School breakfasts for children; Popular cooperatives; Agricultural and livestock producers |
||
1930–1970 Cardenism Post-war Industrialization; Growth Economy; Benefactor State; Economic miracle; Economic and social crisis |
Food policy; National Storage Facilities; School Breakfast Program; Popular supply; Food production subsidy; National Food Program; Consumption subsidy for agricultural products |
Control of grain market prices (guaranteed prices); Access to basic necessities; Lowering the cost of food items; Focus on tackling child malnutrition and price control of basic food basket; Regulation and importation of foodstuffs |
Basic food subsidies; Inexpensive food; Storage and price regulation; Import products; price control; Creation of the National Company of Popular Subsistence (CONASUPO); DICONSA rural stores and LICONSA milk; Objective: subsidies for the impoverished population |
Regulatory Committee of Popular Subsistence Markets |
Workers’ centers; Farmers’ organizations; Independent traders |
1976–2019 Petroleum economy; Market opening; Dismantling of public policies; Privatization of the economy; Market economy |
Mexican Food System (SAM); Program to Support Ejido Commerce (PACE); National Food Program (PNA); Social Food Welfare Program; National Program for Integral Rural Development; Family Food and Nutrition Program (PANF); Law for Sustainable Rural Development; Special Program for Food Security (PESA); Food Support Program; Special Combat Program for Rural Development National Crusade against Hunger, Mexico without Hunger Program; Food Sovereignty Program |
Revival of food self-sufficiency; Address hunger, health and malnutrition problems in marginalized areas; Expansion of the commercial network; Ensure Food Sovereignty and strengthen food security; Access to basic food basket; Fulfilment of education, health, food and housing needs; Eradication of hunger and malnutrition; Increased agricultural production and income for small farmers |
Production, collection, transformation, supply and consumption of food for the poor and extremely poor population; Actions in the health field; Technological support for the rural economy; Price liberalization of the basic food basket; Subsidies in rural stores and tortilla subsidies; School breakfasts; Monetary subsidies for poor families and products; support for family spending; Community kitchens; Promoting food projects for the population with nutritional deficiencies |
COPLAMAR Social Food Welfare Strategy; Rural Food Supply Program, for Families (DIF); the National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL); Children in Solidarity; Progresa and Prospera; Oportunidades Human Development Program; Social Milk Supply Program (LICONSA); Rural Supply Program (DICONSA); 100 x 100 and Living Better Strategies |
Ejido companies; Private farmers; Farmers’ organizations; Citizen organizations |
2019–2024 New political and social regime? |
National Development Plan 2019–2024; Rural Development Public Policy; Mexican Food Security Agency (SEGALMEX) |
Promote and ensure the right to nutritious and quality food; Strengthening food security Access to marketing for small producers; Reduce economic and social inequality in rural areas; Strengthening agroecological production and biodiversity |
Promotion of programs to improve food sufficiency; Strengthening of the peasant economy; Anchoring the rural migrant population; Economic benefits for communities with high poverty rates |
Sowing Life; Institute of Health for Welfare (INSABI) |
Small producers; Indigenous peasant societies; Peri-urban agricultural producers; Private producers |
Source: Ávila et al. (2011), CONEVAL (2010), López and Gallardo (2015), SADER (2019).
19Beginning in the 1940s, the operation of programs and policies corresponding to popular food supply was inconsistent, particularly in terms of the sales companies and cooperative stores, as a result of pressure from private commerce, which alleged unfair competition. The workers’ and popular citizen organization movements eventually succeeded in maintaining these modalities, despite significant changes in their geographic distribution and number. In the context of post-war economic growth (also called “agrarian developmentalism,” 1945–1960), peasant movements played a marginal role in the construction of the national economy. Official efforts and policies for rural development prioritized mechanized and irrigated capitalist agriculture, which had already found its the main source of income in the export market. By 1947, the Mexican State carried out constitutional reforms, which obstructed peasant demands for land, with the intention of creating a climate of “confidence and security” in land tenure and stimulating private investment in rural areas (Esteva, 1980).
20In the 1950s and 1960s, government policies were strengthened through fundamental measures and actions that had an impact on basic food production. The National Seed Production Agency (PRONASE) was set up with the purpose of making basic crop seeds available at low prices to small producers and ejidatarios in a market dominated by transnational companies. The same function was carried out with the nationalization of the fertilizer producing industry (Guanos y Fertilizantes de México), which became a government monopoly, although most of its production was distributed to commercial irrigated agricultural areas. Finally, the National Company of Popular Subsistence (CONASUPO) was created, which intervened in fundamental food system processes: price control of basic foodstuffs and collection, storage and distribution as part of different agricultural programs for food supply (Hewitt, 1991; Esteva, 1980, pp. 88-89). Two key initiatives that served to ensure access to and the distribution of food for the majority of the population were the DICONSA (CONASUPO Distribution Agency) network of stores, mainly in rural areas, and the CONASUPO Industrialized Milk Supply Program (LICONSA), which mainly served the population living in poor districts of the cities and their periphery (Ávila et al., 2011). Peasant organizations participated in this context, establishing alliances with the government for the establishment of marketing support programs (subsidies for the transport and packaging of agricultural products), as well as a network of warehouses for grain storage controlled by the communities. Popular consumer cooperatives, which promoted regional supply committees throughout the country, played an important role in the management of the DICONSA rural stores network (Hewitt, 1991).
21By the 1970s, the Mexican “economic miracle” (sustained economic growth, consolidation of an emerging middle class, management and prioritization of poverty issues) was over. The authoritarian corporatist model (the government and its almost single-party system) began to break down, resulting in a major social and economic crisis that heavily impacted rural areas and, fundamentally, the ejido and peasant communities (Esteva, 1980).
22Rural policies for food production were subject to several phenomena: firstly, the guaranteed pricing system for basic products (corn, beans, wheat, rice) was removed; secondly, the increased importation of some of these products, to the detriment of local rural producers, mainly ejidatarios, which accelerated the migration of impoverished peasants to the cities. Both policies were decisive in the loss of food self-sufficiency60, which was identified in the literature as the so-called “cattle ranching” of agriculture, caused by the increased amount of land allocated to the cultivation of fodder crops to the detriment of basic food grains (Barkin & Suárez, 1983, cited by Zepeda, 1988). Thus, the loss of food self-sufficiency was ensured due to the role assigned to agriculture by the growth model within the global trends of the Mexican economy and the gradual profusion of the transnationalization of agriculture and its growing impact on the food model and on the consumption patterns of the urban population (Zepeda, 1988).
23Three fundamental programs were established between 1979 and 1980, to address marginality and the problems of malnutrition and health in rurale areas: i) the National Commission for Deprived Zones and Marginalized Groups (COPLAMAR); ii) the Public Investment for Rural Development Program (PIDER) and iii) the Mexican Food System (SAM). All three programs were directly linked to productive development and social protection. COPLAMAR operated in areas where marginalized groups lived, fundamentally in indigenous regions; PIDER was mainly oriented to the construction and reinforcement of rural infrastructure – roads, bridges, electricity; SAM, focused on the production and commercialization of basic crops, as well as the nutritional requirements of the population (Gordillo, 2017).
24The objective of the SAM was to restore food self-sufficiency through the production of basic crops and strengthen the participatory role of peasant and ejido economies; it also sought to make food distribution systems more efficient, mainly among the low-income population. The production of grains for consumption was one of the strategic areas to which the government assigned significant resources. The funds for the subsidies awarded through the SAM (guaranteed prices, soft loans, low-cost fertilizers and seeds, low-cost insurance, shared risks, technological improvements), would come from the high oil revenues being banked by the government at the time (Spalding, 1985).
25The SAM prioritized the production of basic grains for human consumption over fodder crops. Participating actors were given an important role, as the thinking was that the creation of the SAM would be a response to the dynamics of an independent peasant movement during the 1970s (Esteva, 1980). Its organizations would be the strategy’s stakeholders, with the aim of increasing their participation in the income generated across the entire food chain61. They would also be responsible for controlling the production process and would participate in the generation and appropriation of value with other agents in the food chain (Luiselli, 1980). The program mainly benefited private commercial agriculture, although it had a positive impact on employment, reduced rural migration and mitigated the inequality of income distribution in rural areas (Esteva, 1980).
26In general terms, it was felt that the SAM was constrained by virulent bureaucracy and by the political interests and priorities of large producers. It has been pointed out that most rural measures and programs have traditionally benefited the country’s major agricultural production areas (Spalding, 1985; Appendini & Salles, 1975). However, in terms of this program, some of the states with large regions based on the peasant-farming economy did increase their corn yields (Spalding, 1985). The SAM, established and sustained with resources garnered through oil revenue, was finally scrapped in 1981, due to fiscal problems resulting from the fall in oil prices.
The dismantling of food policies
27At the beginning of the 1980s, Mexico was already operating an open economy model, with the progressive withdrawal of State intervention in the management of the economy. The change of government in 1982 marked the start of a gradual dismantling of historically instituted food policies.
28The National Food Program (PRONAL) was implemented in 1983, operated by the National Food Commission, whose objective was to raise basic food consumption for low-income population sectors by increasing the production of agricultural and fishery foodstuffs, in order to improve the population’s nutrition. It was implemented through subprograms related to production, supply, consumption, health and nutrition, with little coordination among them. Subsidies granted by previous programs were drastically reduced, so the issue of food self-sufficiency was relegated to a lower ranking priority (López & Gallardo, 2015; Spalding, 1985).
29Since the 1990s, food strategies have been linked to social programs with greater scope and coverage, with the intention of reducing marginalization and poverty.62 As is the norm in Mexico, each presidential administration tries to make its own mark, maintaining, with some variations, the prioritization of food and nutrition programs.63
30Around the same time, the importation of basic grains was reinforced to ensure the operation of food programs. Foreign food purchases multiplied, to the detriment of small producers and peasant-farming economies. In government plans and programs, the reference to food self-sufficiency was definitively eliminated, officially replaced by the term, food sovereignty, which almost immediately became food security, in response to guidelines promoted by international organizations (FAO, World Bank, International Monetary Fund). The continuity of the National Food Program was maintained, with numerous subprograms, integrated and operationalized on the basis of the core social policy for the 1988–1994 six-year term, the National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL). The gradual withdrawal of subsidies for production and consumption continued, except for staple products, such as milk and tortillas, in addition to maintaining food support programs, such as the DICONSA rural stores network, school breakfasts and LICONSA dairies (López & Gallardo, 2015; Ávila et al., 2011).
31During the 1994–2000 government administration, the food security approach continued, based on the Family Food and Nutrition Program (PANF), with three core areas: i) school breakfasts, ii) basic food basket for the poorest families in rural areas, and iii) food basket and support for families in marginalized urban areas (López & Gallardo, 2015). The distribution of family food parcels was increased, mainly in peripheral urban and rural areas, with emphasis on areas with indigenous populations in order to address food and nutritional deficits. The measure was part of a broader social strategy, the Education, Health and Food Program (Progresa), focused on combating extreme poverty in rural areas and providing direct subsidies to strengthen food security through the provision of food of higher nutritional quality and school scholarships. They operated as targeted policies, with comprehensive health, nutrition, food support and education interventions run in 250 rural micro-regions in poverty and extreme poverty (Ibid.).
32The year 2000 marked the beginning of a different era in Mexico’s political life. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which built the corporatist system for 70 years, left power. The successor party, the National Action Party (PAN), with a right-wing ideological orientation, did not make any fundamental changes in the economic and social model of government programs and marked an era of continuity in neoliberal policies. It tackled the problems of poverty, food and nutrition from a welfarist perspective.
33The prioritization of food and nutritional requirements was implemented through Rural Development programs linked to numerous subprograms within the main government project 2000–2006, the Oportunidades Human Development Program (CONEVAL, 2010). Government aid was provided through in-kind or economic transfers, as well as the granting of food supplements, aimed at addressing lags in the areas of malnutrition, malnutrition and the growth of obesity and overweight.
34In 2001, the Law for Sustainable Rural Development was enacted, under which the legal instruments that regulate the dynamics and activities inherent to rural territories in Mexico are contemplated, with particular focus on food production, emphasizing security, sovereignty and self-sufficiency. It identified the basic products required for an adequate diet, the domestic demands for the consumption of basic and strategic products, the needs for food supply and imports, working in conjunction with environmental protection programs (Chamber of Deputies, 2001). It is worth noting that none of the laws or regulations referring to food made any mention of involving the producers’ organizations in the discussion or design of the food programs and policies. Similarly, said law exhibits a dangerous bias that, as a matter of national policy, could face institutional limitations at subnational and/or local territorial levels (Valencia et al., 2019).
35The food security framework continued to be implemented through the Special Program for Food Security (PESA), a model recommended by the FAO to increase the productivity of small farmers in low-income food-deficit countries in order to reduce the incidence of hunger and malnutrition. With the necessary adjustments, the PESA was adopted in Mexico in 2002, operating as a pilot project in six Mexican states to adapt its methodology to national conditions. As of 2005, its operation was expanded to 16 states in the central, southern and southeasterly regions of the country with high poverty rates, representing one of Mexico’s most important government rural programs (Gordillo, 2017). As central objectives, it proposed the strengthening of food security, as well as the impact on increasing the income of families in highly marginalized communities. This would be achieved by increasing agricultural production, promoting food self-sufficiency and expanding local markets. At the same time, it would implement technological innovations and improvements, in addition to generating interactions that would impact local and community organization (Cherrett, 2017). A central role was played by the rural development agencies (ADRs), a novel form of extensionism carried out by a multidisciplinary team that advised and guided productive and marketing processes (Gavotti, 2017). In 2008, a change of name saw it become the Strategic Food Security Project.
36During the 2006–2012 governmental period, the Oportunidades program continued to be run with some minor adjustments. The main actions concerning food issues were channeled to the population through food subsidies64. Although some external evaluations (CONEVAL, 2010) reported benefits in terms of improvements in child nutrition as a result of being supplied with healthy food and regular milk rations, the painful problems associated with social inequality were also exposed: in terms of access to food, 18.2% of the Mexican population was in food poverty in 2008, that is, they did not have enough income to acquire the goods for a basic food basket, even if they used their entire income. Moreover, according to the multidimensional measurement of poverty, more than 10% of the nationwide population were lacking access to adequate food in 2008 (Ibid.).
37In the 2012–2018 period, the issue of food was addressed through an intergovernmental program, the Prospera Human Development Program, with the participation of the Secretariat of Social Development (SEDESOL) and the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food. One of the main components, the National Crusade against Hunger, was established in 2013, and adopted the PESA methodology, as a comprehensive and participatory national social policy strategy aimed at addressing the problem of hunger in Mexico. It focused its strategy on territorial units in multidimensional poverty based on the provision of adequate food and nutrition to strengthen food security. Among its central objectives, it aimed to reduce acute child malnutrition and hunger, as well as to improve the weight and height indicators for children. In terms of production, it sought to increase food production volumes to raise the income of farmers and small producers, as well as the production of grains, meat and fish products, which are fundamental to the basic rural food basket. It sought to improve the eating habits and dietary diversity of rural families, and to strengthen mechanisms to facilitate access to markets. It also sought to minimize post-harvest losses of food during storage, transportation, distribution and commercialization, as well as to promote community participation (Martínez, 2017).
38Unfortunately, the programs aimed at addressing these social problems failed to fully meet their objectives for many reasons, including inadequate methodological strategies, excessive bureaucracy and lack of continuity in fundamental mechanisms, such as the ADRs. Other vices and phenomenologies rooted in the Mexican rural milieu also exist, such as the duplicity of functions of governmental production support agencies, corruption in the management of material and financial resources; intangible structural situations, such as despotism and local and regional political control, which have historically acted as major obstacles to the development of local initiatives. Other issues mentioned include, a lack of understanding of the historical and cultural environment associated with the communities targeted for intervention (Cherrett, 2017), a lack of comprehensive understanding in relation to poverty and marginality, particularly within indigenous communities, in order to act, as well as the absence of any strategy that identified the territorial scope of the communities, their cultural, environmental, economic and social dynamics, and the ways in which they interact with institutions (Ibid.). Some evaluative analyses of the PESA program indicate marginal benefits in terms of the contribution of food to food baskets.65
39As of 2017, the PESA changed its name once again to the Food Security Project for Rural Areas, as a component part of the Small Producers’ Support Program, which was run until the 2012–2018 government left office. The component’s purpose was to contribute to ensuring food security in highly and very highly marginalized areas with communities living in poverty and extreme poverty.
A new national project: a shift towards food and social policy?
40Rural development policies in Mexico have, historically, assigned a marginal role to family and small producers in terms of their participation in the national agrifood system. The established rural development model has prioritized corporate agribusiness, particularly in agricultural regions linked to the international markets of the United States and Canada. They also provide large volumes of food produced under conventional methods to supply the large urban food supply markets, in which small and medium-sized producers (ejidatarios, communal and private landowners) also participate to a lesser extent (figure 6.1).
Figure 6.1. Mexico’s agricultural frontier (source: SIAP, 2017, Agricultural Atlas of Mexico).
41The year 2019 marked the beginning of a new stage in Mexican social history: the rise to power of a political formation that differed from the corporativism party, in power for seventy years and the continuity of subsequent governments, identified with market economies (2000–2012), and a predominantly center-left political formation that set out, as its main goal, to reduce the economic and social inequality existing in the country. Its government program emphasizes the development of a Welfare Economy, where the market does not replace the State, but rather the State places the focus on marginalized sectors as a priority for public policies (Mexico, Secretaría de Gobernación, 2019).
42One of the fundamental policies for inclusive rural development is related to food production. It tries, as far as possible, to reverse the conventional food model and influence healthy nutrition practices, which will have a positive impact on the decrease of malnutrition and malnutrition rates. Similarly, it seeks to address the serious problems of obesity, diabetes and other diseases suffered by the Mexican population. It brings back the essence of the self-sufficiency and food sovereignty approach in order to guarantee a higher standard of living for peasant groups.
43The government’s guiding framework, the National Development Plan 2019–2024, states that one of its objectives is to promote and ensure the right to nutritious, sufficient and quality food, through the National Agreement for Food Self-Sufficiency. Thus, the State once again plays a central role in the management of the process, in addition to vindicating small and medium-sized producers as productive subjects with rights, to whom support will be granted directly without intermediaries, with technical support and access to productive assets. Such measures are proclaimed as acts of social justice (Mexico, Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, 2019).
44Food self-sufficiency is established as a concept for the revitalization of domestic food production. Similarly, there is a focus on strengthening agriculture as a profitable activity, with the aim of preventing rural decline. An important objective is to achieve sustainable food production as a means of combating malnutrition. The relative production chains for basic grains, meat, dairy, fisheries and aquaculture will be promoted, with the joint participation of the public and private sectors in public policies. Gradually, such processes will have an impact on the reconstruction of social and community cohesion and solidarity in rural societies, especially in peasant economies and marginal rural and urban-rural groups (Ibid.). The aim is to promote programs that will strengthen the country’s food sovereignty (figure 6.2).
Figure 6.2. Government programs in Mexico’s Agrifood System, 2019–2024 (source: Suarez, 2020).
45There are two main programs through which the strategy will be operationalized. Firstly, the Mexican Food Security Agency (SEGALMEX), established to take charge of food production and distribution and backed by a central subprogram, Guaranteed Prices, which consists of granting minimum per-ton payments to small producers of corn, bean, rice and wheat to ensure their profitability in the process, which is affected by increasingly unprofitable market prices. In addition to promoting the income of small and medium-sized agricultural producers, it aims to encourage food self-sufficiency by promoting the cultivation and production of staple foods (corn, beans, rice, bread wheat and milk) in order to limit imports as much as possible. In a complementary manner, it will seek to improve the system of collection, distribution and rural supply and promote the production and sale of basic food basket products. The operation of this program prioritizes its actions in areas characterized by high and very high marginalization and will benefit indigenous producers. It is linked to other parallel subprograms run by the Secretariat for Rural Development (SADER), such as Production for Welfare and Fertilizers for Welfare, which will grant credit and in-kind support, in addition to providing low-cost fertilizers to small and medium-scale producers (Mexico, Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, 2019) (table 6.2).
Table 6.2. Food security programs, 2019–2024
Program |
General |
Target |
Objectives |
Scope of operation |
Actors involved |
Link |
Impact on Nutrition and Health |
Production for welfare |
Food self-sufficiency and rural recovery |
Beans, coffee and sugarcane producers |
Financing for producers; Liquidity to invest in inputs and services for production |
Payment of labor, machinery rental, purchase of seeds and fertilizers; social effects |
Small producers under 5 ha and up to 20 ha. Indigenous population |
Various SADER programs |
Improve nutrition |
Guaranteed Prices |
Incentivize the income of small producers; Food self-sufficiency; Reduction of imports |
Producers of corn for human consumption, rice, beans, wheat for breadmaking and milk |
Improve rural collection, commercialization and supply; Food sales and production; Guaranteed prices in highly marginalized areas |
National; Particularly in highly marginalized areas; Farmer economy regions |
Small producers; Medium-sized producers |
State (SEGALMEX), producers |
Improve the safe and pricing of commodities |
Agrifood Safety and Health Program 2020 |
Improve the country’s phytosanitary heritage and food, aquaculture and fishery safety |
Epidemiological Surveillance of Pests and Diseases; Food, Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fisheries Safety |
Prevention and combat of pests and diseases affecting agriculture, livestock, aquaculture and fishing |
National coverage; Phytosanitary and food, aquaculture and fisheries safety measures |
Regional controls; State governments; Poor, vulnerable and elderly producers |
Strengthening of the Technical; Operational and Administrative Capacity of SENASICA |
Risk coverage for contamination in agrifood, aquaculture and fishery production units |
Rural Supply Program (DICONSA) |
Inclusive Economic Development |
Rural communities characterized by high or very high marginalization with no local supply service |
Facilitate economic access to food products; Food security in highly marginalized areas |
Rural areas characterized by high and very high marginalization; Peripheral urban spaces |
Impoverished, disadvantaged and vulnerable communities characterized by marginalization. The elderly |
Interinstitutional Coordination; Secretariat for Rural Development and Environment |
Strategy to combat poverty and hunger; Promoting food safety and nutritional improvement |
Social Milk Supply Program (LICONSA) |
Actions to supply milk to marginal and low-income sectors with nutritional deficits |
Inhabitants of mostly indigenous areas, high marginalization and high rates of violence |
Improved access to food for the members of beneficiary households |
Rural areas and urban peripheries throughout the country |
Child and youth population in poor and vulnerable situations; Disadvantaged, marginalized elderly people |
Liconsa, direct beneficiary; Liconsa, community supply; SEGALMEX |
Malnutrition; Food Security |
Fertilizers for Welfare Program |
Increased productivity |
Small-scale corn, bean and rice producers |
150 kg of Urea/ha 150 kg of DAP/ha |
Edo. Guerrero (81 marginalized municipalities); 95 SEGALMEX distribution centers |
Small-scale producers up to 2 ha |
Three levels of government; Educational and research centers |
Environmentally sustainable practices |
Program for the Promotion of Agriculture, Livestock, Fishing and Aquaculture. (BIENPESCA) |
Promoting nutritious food production and consumption |
i) Welfare for fishermen and fish farmers. ii) Varied use of aquaculture resources |
Promoting small and medium-sized fishery and aquaculture producers for food self-sufficiency |
Coasts and lakes in rural areas throughout the country |
Small fishery and aquaculture producers |
CONAPESCA; INAPESCA; Fishery and Aquaculture Producers’ Register |
Increased production and consumption of fishery and aquaculture products for a healthy and nutritious diet |
Source: SADER (2019); Agriculture Programs. SADER (2020), Agricultural Programs.
46Other programs included in SEGALMEX’s strategy (already in place during previous governments) are the Rural Supply Program (DICONSA), which will distribute basic grains and other processed foods in rural areas at below-market prices for the benefit of the local population. The role played by the Social Milk Supply Program (LICONSA) is crucial in that, in addition to providing subsidized food, it addresses nutritional deficiencies throughout the country66 (SADER, 2019).
47The strategy is complemented by the Bienpesca program, which seeks to provide small-scale producers with access to fishery products that provide nutritional variety in their diet. Monetary support and credits will be granted for investment in fishing infrastructure in priority coastal areas with low technical development in the activity. Table 2 shows the programs linked to SEGALMEX.
48A second core area of work linked to the food issue is established around the Sowing Life (Sembrando Vida) Sustainable Communities Program. The central subprogram, Agrarian Subjects and Rural Areas of Mexico, will be implemented in the areas with the greatest wealth of biodiversity (south and southeast of the country), where a large proportion of the native peoples also live. This territorial area has the highest rates of poverty and backwardness, due to the ineffectiveness of previous institutional programs implemented to meet basic food needs.
49The Sembrando Vida program seeks to increase agricultural productivity by positioning sustainable family (peasant) agriculture at the top of the agenda. The aim is to gradually strengthen the strategy, with a long-term regional development vision that will help reduce the vulnerability of its population. Support will be provided to rural producers farming tracts land of less than 2.5 hectares to encourage the establishment of agroforestry production systems in rural areas with living standards below the social welfare line (poverty and extreme poverty).
50The agroforestry project will combine traditional crops with fruit and timber trees. As the program will be developed with family economies at its core, it will be based on the Milpa Intercalada mixed agriculture system (MIAF System), that is, the cultivation of grains and vegetables in areas of fruit trees (rubber, pepper, cocoa, coffee, cinnamon, etc.) cultivation. The program’s goal is to recover the forest cover of one million hectares in the country, while strengthening family and peasant agriculture. Government support will be provided in kind (plants, inputs and tools), in addition to technical assistance. Financial support will also be provided for minor expenses and the promotion of savings (establishment of self-managed savings banks) (Mexico, Secretaría de Bienestar, 2019).
51Parallel to the operation of the above programs, a body called the Intersectoral Group for Health, Food, Environment and Competitiveness (GISAMAC) has been created, “whose objective is to build a fair, healthy, sustainable and competitive agrifood system that improves the nutritional status of the Mexican population through food production that preserves and restores agroecological systems, using an intersectoral cross-cutting approach” (Suárez, 2020). The challenges and modalities of operation in this shift towards food policy are assumed by this entity, broadly linking policies to health issues such as child malnutrition, malnutrition, obesity and weight problems.
52GISAMAC is made up of different ministries and institutions involved in the operation and management of agriculture, health, economy, use of and access to water, care for indigenous groups and everything related to a different, more inclusive vision of rural development in Mexico. It includes national research centers and international organizations, such as the FAO, as consultants. The group has developed as a result of a need to establish an agrifood system with solid institutional links to address nutritional problems in the country. Its function would be to coordinate policies and actions related to food in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the aim of influencing the comorbidities associated with poor nutrition. The program is still under construction and, as such, no precise results currently exist.
53In this sense, the direction that food policy in Mexico will take is still uncertain, as the conditions for implementing change are not clearly set out. It will not be an easy task to dismantle a corporatized framework, deeply embedded in the agrarian structure, with deep-rooted mechanisms of power and control.
54The flagship programs for food security (SEGALMEX and Sembrando Vida), revive strategies and/or mechanisms to achieve the goals, i.e., the strengthening of the country’s peasant agriculture, and greater participation in the food process. To that end, the figure of the ADR, implemented as one of the pillars of the PESA program, will be reoriented as a means for direct delivery of benefits and advice on the execution of the various modalities in the program.
55Other structural vices that have developed in Mexican institutions relate to the existence of corporatized areas that promote rural development and where political control still prevails. The inefficiency and bureaucracy of the public institutions, as well as a high degree of corruption, prevail within the agencies in charge of rural development. There is also a frequent overlapping of functions and programs between national and state governments. The main peasant organizations continue to engage in clientelistic dynamics, particularly when it comes to electoral processes. In Mexico, as in many countries, the eradication of corruption and clientelism has become the principal hurdle for rural development programs. As a result, innumerable difficulties and ruptures are encountered with regard to the institutionalization of innovations and territorial development.
56The shift or transformation in the organization of the Agrifood System in Mexico, aims to become an intergovernmental State policy, aligned with the fulfillment of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, as well as with the Paris Agreements on Climate Change (Mexico, Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, 2019). This constitutes a territorial transformation project that requires the mobilization of resources and capacities corresponding to various public and private actors; however, to be effective, it must have the capacity to develop mechanisms in which effective links are established between the state, rural society and the market to promote the food requirements of the national population and raise the welfare levels of small producers in processes that foster social and environmental cohesion. According to Berdegué and Favareto (2019), it is essentially a matter of substantiating the food issue in terms of inclusive and sustainable rural territorial development.
Conclusion: outlook for the agrifood system in the current context of health and economic crisis
57The shift in Mexico’s agricultural public policy is an important opportunity to strengthen the role of family and peasant agriculture, especially in the current circumstances of the pandemic. The purpose of rural policies, the recovery of food security, places marginal rural dwellers, small-scale producers, at the center of the agenda as actors to whom policies are directed and as participants in their management.
58In more recent times, interaction between social actors has occurred at different levels; it is the result of social movements that they developed during the 1990’s, when the greatest dismantling of rural public policies was in progress, with the transfer of state functions to private companies and an increase in the importation of basic foodstuffs. A number of social movements emerged during that period, one of the most important of which was the No Corn, No Country (Sin Maíz no hay País) campaign, a social agreement between numerous national and local peasant organizations, which reclaimed important negotiation spaces regarding their participation in food production and distribution. However, these were only temporary gains in an economic and social environment where decisions and public policies followed neoliberal guidelines, in which state involvement was largely semi-symbolic. This trend continued until well into the 21st century.
59The current government’s shift towards the implementation of rural development policies returns to these antecedents of struggles and social movements in which the role of small and medium-sized producers is vindicated, with the intention of linking rural programs and policies to food sovereignty.
60The great challenge that lies ahead relates to the actual operation of these policies; with how they might transcend and achieve their remit. How government action might promote greater participation for small rural producers in strengthening and consolidating the food system. This is the unfinished business of the Mexican Food Security program (SEGALMEX), which, in the first instance, needs to generate a nationwide impact on the rural sector, while, in a differentiated manner, with greater emphasis on highly marginalized regions, work towards anchoring the local population and raising welfare levels.
61The aim is also to reinforce the role of the state as a promoter of agricultural development and of small and medium-scale rural producers as productive subjects, a role that was curtailed during previous governments.
62Experiences and programs developed in the past could be recovered, which, when adapted to current modalities, would reactivate the original purpose for which they were created. For example, the various programs of the PESA strategy contain useful guidelines that could have an impact on strengthening community-based peasant agriculture (urban kitchen garden programs, among others). It would be necessary to reactivate efforts, such as those of the ADRs, once considered new forms of extensionism, where the relationship between farmers and extensionists would generate broad and diverse channels of participation, resulting in the development of local development processes and, therefore, higher welfare levels.
63And here it will be necessary to establish solid mechanisms of interaction between different actors. Some major conflicts exist that need to be resolved: first, the monopolistic expansion of transnational agribusinesses and its impact on the food system.67 In parallel, greater access to markets needs to be facilitated for small producers. In order to move towards a sustainable agrifood regime, agreements need to be negotiated with large capitalist farmers for the transition towards more sustainable forms of production and the promotion of agroecological agriculture. An example of this is the dispute over the reduction and gradual prohibition of the use of glyphosates, promoted by the Mexican government for the year 2024.
64Although food production for supplying Mexico’s urban centers is largely carried out under the conventional productivist model, the current health crisis scenario highlights the importance of alternative models and forms of agriculture carried out in rural areas close to cities, in peri-urban areas, mainly for the cultivation of vegetables and perishable products, as a contemporary trend at international level. In the present circumstances, online food supply is gaining ground as one of the ways in which agricultural producers and restaurant businesses are facing the economic crisis resulting from the pandemic. In the local peri-urban agricultural areas there are family producers, as well as small private producers, involved in this process, forming short commercialization and consumption circuits, whereby the production is delivered directly or almost directly to the consumer through the supply of baskets and/or boxes of various foods (usually organic, healthy).
65The high environmental and social costs of the prevailing agrifood model have been discussed in both academic and scientific circles. The importance of building “(…) social participation initiatives aimed at promoting agroecological and supply production for segments of metropolitan populations, from markets and street markets that promote short circuits and solidarity economies (…) strengthening processes, bonds of solidarity and trust between producers and consumers, with significant participation of local peri-urban agricultural production areas,” (CONACYT, 2020) has been debated.
66Major obstacles and difficulties exist in Mexico in relation to building public policies based on conditions of social equality and full democratic processes. Firstly, due to weak or non-existent governance, as civil society organizations have little influence on decision-making, which generates uncertainties regarding the generation of economic benefits for small producers. In the broad sense of territorial development, it is imperative to enhance technical capacities in order to introduce new content in public action, strengthened with political capacities that ensure the dissemination of innovative processes. The absence or partial presence of these elements would limit their scope and the interactions between actors in a territory (Berdegué and Favareto, 2019).
67Hence the initial question posed in the title of the article. Will food policy in Mexico follow a process of continuity, or will it be capable of establishing modalities that lead to the rupture of trends and practices that hinder the development of rural economies (particularly those of peasants and small producers), in order to reduce economic and social inequalities? That is the question.
Bibliographie
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Notes de bas de page
58 In fact, the experiments for the introduction of the Green Revolution and technological development in Mexican agriculture were carried out in agricultural production regions dominated by private, highly technified properties with irrigation in the north and northwest of Mexico, as well as in the center and west of the country (Bajío). Agricultural production in these regions was largely tailored to the market of the Southern United States.
59 This was such an extensive program that by the 1950s, Mexico had the highest levels of agricultural mechanization in Latin America (Esteva, 1980).
60 Due to the direction taken by agricultural public policies, in 1973 Mexico imported 25% of the corn consumed (Barquera et al., 2001), while, at the same time, the deficit in the production of other grains increased. Imports of basic grains increased at an exponential rate (9% of the sectoral total in 1965, 67% in 1975 and 80% in 1980) (Luiselli, 1980).
61 The Mexican Food System consisted of “a production and income strategy in the interest of feeding the people. In response to the trend for denationalization in agriculture and the brutal attack on the peasant economy; (...) it seeks to reactivate agricultural and fishing production and to act on the transformation and distribution devices of public food in order to strengthen the peasant economy (...) it also proposes the renewed development of agriculture, as it aims to reorient it to the domestic market, so that it can substitute its own imports and free up foreign currency for productive investments with a broad and rapid impact on rural employment, production and positive links to industry and distribution” (Luiselli, 1980).
62 Poverty and food insecurity are two of the most serious problems affecting a large part of the Mexican population. According to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL) in 2014, 46.2% of the national population (55.3 million people), was in poverty, and 23.4% (27 million people), suffered from food poverty. The situation was even more serious in rural areas, with 61.1% of the population living in poverty and 30.9% lacking access to food (Coneval, 2015).
63 In the 1988–1994 period, the Solidaridad program was established; in 1994–2000, Progresa; in 2000–2006, Oportunidades, with continuity in the 2006–2012 period; for the 2012–2018 period, the Prospera program was established.
64 Rural Food Supply Program; Social Milk Supply Program; Food Support Program (monetary or in-kind transfer); Food Supplements; Nutritional Status Monitoring. Other programs related to food issues were: School Breakfasts; Care for at risk children under the age of 5; Food Aid for Vulnerable Families.
65 In some cases, “the PESA contributes less than 10% of the value of the beneficiaries’ per capita consumption, which makes its contribution to the basic food basket insignificant, thus beneficiaries are not incentivized to stay or improve the projects” (Gimate & Muñoz, 2017).
66 According to the National Health and Nutrition Survey (Ensanut, 2012), 13.6% of children under five years of age nationwide suffer from chronic malnutrition. In rural areas of the country, that percentage rises to 27.4%.
67 In 2016, the Mexican government introduced legislation to limit the sale of sweet pastries and drinks with high sugar content in schools. The initiative came under strong pressure as a result of lobbying from ultra-processed food manufacturing companies, some of them transnational (Bimbo, Unilever, Coca Cola), which neutralized the initiatives. In June 2020, in some Mexican provinces (Oaxaca, Tabasco, Mexico City), laws were passed prohibiting the sale of soda, sweets and fried foods (junk food) to minors; an insufficient measure, with no adequate controls to reduce childhood obesity currently in existence. In addition, traditional Mexican cuisine contains high amounts of fats and carbohydrates. Front-of-pack warning labeling for processed and ultra-processed foods, as well as for sugar-sweetened beverages was also approved in 2020. There is currently no evidence or data available to evaluate this measure.
Auteur
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Héctor Ávila-Sánchez
Researcher at the Regional Center for Multidisciplinary Research and professor of undergraduate and graduate geography, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ahector@unam.mx
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Creative Commons - Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
Paroles de chercheurs
Environnement et interdisciplinarité
Évelyne Brun, Jean-François Ponge et Jean-Claude Lefeuvre
2017
La question des échelles en sciences humaines et sociales
Sébastien Boulay et Sylvie Fanchette (dir.)
2019
Systèmes agraires et changement climatique au Sud
Les chemins de l'adaptation
Hubert Cochet, Olivier Ducourtieux et Nadège Garambois (dir.)
2019
Les terres agricoles face à l’urbanisation
De la donnée à l’action, quels rôles pour l’information ?
Roel Plant, Pierre Maurel, Éric Barbe et al. (dir.)
2018
Sociologie des changements de pratiques en agriculture
L’apport de l’étude des réseaux de dialogues entre pairs
Claude Compagnone
2019
Construire des politiques alimentaires urbaines
Concepts et démarches
Caroline Brand, Nicolas Bricas, Damien Conaré et al. (dir.)
2017
Services écosystémiques et protection des sols
Analyses juridiques et éclairages agronomiques
Carole Hermon (dir.)
2018
Manger en ville
Regards socio-anthropologiques d’Afrique, d’Amérique latine et d’Asie
Nicolas Bricas, Olivier Lepiller, Audrey Soula et al. (dir.)
2020
La santé globale au prisme de l'analyse des politiques publiques
Sébastien Gardon, Amandine Gautier et Gwenola Le Naour
2020
Agroforesterie et services écosystémiques en zone tropicale
Recherche de compromis entre services d’approvisionnement et autres services écosystémiques
Josiane Seghieri et Jean-Michel Harmand (dir.)
2019
Méthodes d'investigation de l'alimentation et des mangeurs
MIAM
Olivier Lepiller, Tristan Fournier, Nicolas Bricas et al. (dir.)
2021
Télédétection et modélisation spatiale
Applications à la surveillance et au contrôle des maladies liées aux moustiques
Annelise Tran, Eric Daudé et Thibault Catry (dir.)
2022
