ABSTRACT
Across the Mexican countryside, approximately 5,654,000 small-scale farmersincluding ejido landholders, communal landholders, and peasants in possession of some amount of agricultural land (posesionarios) in the ejido properties-manage a total of about 3,392,000 plots in and around 31,518 communities (INEGI, 2007, 2008). These farmers represent about 5.4% of the total population in Mexico, which in 2005 stood at about 103,263,388 inhabitants (INEGI, 2000, 2005).
