ABSTRACT
Mexico's growth in agricultural production exceeded its population growth and the country's nutritional level improved progressively with the increasing availability of food. The inadequacy of income from the traded portion of their harvest led peasants to take on extra work outside the farm. Mexico has ample energy resources which enable it to maintain high rates of economic growth and assure its energy supply for the immediate future. Most studies of energy demand in the agricultural sector deal solely with commercial energy use in production, that is, with oil and electricity, leaving aside all "non-commercial" forms such as fuelwood and vegetable wastes. The Energy programme asserts that it will protect the weakest sectors by means of specific subsidies. Its orientation, however, remains within the boundaries of existing energy policy. Despite the absence of an official rural energy policy, various technical groups have been developing non-conventional energy sources for rural application in different parts of the country.
