ABSTRACT
The gap between goals and results that is intrinsic to the industry of disasters in Campeche can be examines in terms of four case studies. Each representing a different development model in the chronological cycle of state intervention in the ejidal sector: frontier colonization along the Candelaria River, small irrigation projects in the Camino Real and Los Chenes, and two projects in the Valley of Edzna agricultural zone—the Bonfil resettlement scheme and the Yohaltun "state farm". The agrarian policy and practice have promoted a wholesale industry of disasters that operates on two levels—the formal layer of official statistics on crop losses and the underlying network of underground agreements, payoffs, and trading of favors representing the real strategy for survival within the system. The fundamental optimism of the collective is incompatible with the cynicism of the industry of disasters". The program requires extensive reforms throughout the agricultural development apparatus.
