ABSTRACT
For individual households within the social sector, the changes in the agrarian law introduced by President Salinas in 1991 opened the possibility that land formerly in usufruct may be owned individually by those who desire it. More immediately, it also lifted a web of restrictions that had been used to achieve political and economic control over the ejido. At the eve of the reforms, the ejido was a complex institution incorporating a repressed peasant economy through a set of constraints and obligations on the organization of production; strong state intervention in the management of the internal affairs of the ejido, including particularly its decision-making mechanisms and its channels of access to public goods and services; and a codification of its forms of representation for community and political participation. Regulation of the organization of production included prohibition of employing wage workers, renting or selling land, being absent from the ejido for more than two years without losing rights to the land, cultivating more than 20 hectares of land, and an obligation to vote internal regulations to codify individual rights and the management of common property resources. The government could also intervene through a set of restrictions and obligations for access to public resources: Given lack of property rights that could serve as collateral for loans, credit was available through one public source and given to the ejido as a whole with restrictions on the choice of crops—prohibiting, for instance, intercropped corn—and on the choice of technology through the amount of credit granted and delivery of credit in kind. Insurance was compulsory with official credit; access to irrigation water required a permit with restrictions on the patterns of land use; and production was done under contract with CONASUPO and specialized parastatal agencies.
