ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the particular obstacles that the revolutionary Sandinista government faced in transforming agricultural institutions in order to improve food self-sufficiency. An evaluation of the Nicaraguan case highlights the particular dilemmas of achieving food security in a political economy in the process of transition. The main focus of agricultural development in the century prior to the revolution was on the export sector rather than on food crops, a focus that occurred at the expense of peasant production, because the two most important basic food crops, beans and corn, were almost exclusively peasant produced. During the twentieth century, due to its limited industrial base, Nicaragua continued to follow an agricultural export development model and deepened its integration into the world market. Combined with "encouragement" from the US Alliance for Progress, growing tensions in rural areas—which culminated in a number of peasant land invasions in the more densely populated Pacific region—forced the Somoza dictatorship to launch a land-reform program.
