ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the crop component of Mexican agriculture. During the last two decades, Mexico has witnessed radical changes in public policies toward agriculture and the rural economies. Mexico's former undersecretary of Agriculture, Luis Tellez, predicted that about one-half of the Mexican rural population, around 16 million people, forced to move within a decade. Employment in the agricultural sector of Mexico decreased by approximately 2 percent during 1993-2002 with respect to 1984-1993. National AD/CVD laws of the United States were not changed; Mexico adapted these laws to be in accordance with its trade liberalization policies. The response of some of the traditional farmers to the agricultural and political conditions of the 1990s included the Zapatista uprising as well as the use of pressure groups to change government policy. The Salinas government created new institutions, privatized, and eliminated state enterprises related to agriculture, and signed the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and the United States.
