Robert W' Blake, Michigan State University Email: rwblakemsu'edu

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Robert W. Blake, Michigan State
UniversityE-mail rwblake_at_msu.edu
Rural Realities Food, Free Trade, Survival,
Migration
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Coatepec microwatershed Veracruz, Mexico
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Tensions between agriculture, pure water and
land use
Community of Micoxtla, Veracruz Micro
-watershed risks
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Experience Latin America II, 2009
Like a river of change.
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Experience Latin America II, 2009
Will theycan theyever be the same?
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Literature
Diamond, J. 2005. Collapse How societies
choose to fail or succeed. Lovelock, J. 2006.
The Revenge of Gaia Earths climate crisis and
the fate of humanity. Blake, R. and C.
Nicholson. 2004. Livestock, land use change, and
environmental outcomes in the developing world.
Chapter 9 in Responding to the Livestock
Revolutionthe role of globalisation and
implications for poverty alleviation. (Owen et
al., eds). Nottingham Univ. Press, UK.
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Literature (2)
Nicholson, C., R. Blake, R. Reid, and J.
Schelhas. 2001. Environmental impacts of
livestock in the developing world. Environment.
43(2)7-17. Parsons, D., L. Ramírez-Aviles, J.
H. Cherney, Q. M. Ketterings, R. W. Blake, and C.
F. Nicholson. 2009.Managing maize production in
shifting cultivation milpa systems in Yucatán,
through weed control and manure application.
Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 133123-134. World
Bank. World Development Report 2008 Agriculture
for Development. The World Bank. _________.
World Development Report 2010 Development and
Climate Change. The World Bank.
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Fish and pluck for better understanding
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World Development Report 2008 Agriculture for
Development

• More and better investment is required.
• Strengthen the voice of a wider group of
  stakeholders, esp. smallholders.
• Underinvestment is compounded by misinvestment
• Inefficient subsidies benefiting richer farmers.
• Results in opportunity losses in foregone growth
  and income.

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World Development Report 2008 Agriculture for
Development

• More and better investment is required.
• Strengthen the voice of a wider group of
  stakeholders, esp. smallholders.
• Underinvestment is compounded by misinvestment
• Inefficient subsidies benefiting richer farmers.
• Results in opportunity losses in foregone growth
  and income.
• How well have we learned our development
  lessons?

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Essential Factors

• 5 facilities and services
• . . . that must be available to farmers if
  agriculture is to develop.
• A. T. Mosher, 1966
• Getting Agriculture
  Moving

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The Five Essential Factors

• Markets for farm products
• Constantly changing technology
• Local availability of supplies and equipment
• Production incentives for farmers
• Transportation

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The Five Accelerators

• Education (formal, informal)
• Production credit
• Group action by farmers
• Improving agricultural land
• National planning for agricultural development

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Growth in the farming sector

• As farm family incomes rise, so does rural demand
  for goods and services.
• The net effect of the increase in rural consumer
  demand is that every new job created in farming
  generates roughly two new jobs in the rural
  microenterprise sector.
• Sisler and Oyer, 2001
• IARD 602 Millenium Conf. on Agric.
  Develop. 21st Century

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Rural families in southern Mexico lie at the
bottom of a vast and widening development gap.
Rural poverty continues unabated in this region.

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Rural families in southern Mexico lie at the
bottom of a vast and widening development gap.
Rural poverty continues unabated in this region.
Although the share of rural households living
in poverty improved to 73 in 2000, it was
still greater than in 1989.
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(scourge, infestation, calamity
Contralínea Chiapas julio 2008, p. 3
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• Contralínea Chiapas
• July 2008
• Calderón surrenders
• food sovereignty
• Mexico imports 42 of
• food consumed
• 75 of cultivable land
• degraded, 500 yr to
• recuperate
• By end of current
• administration, food
• dependency will grow
• to 60.
• Jaffee 20 billion, US

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Headline Campesinos, excluidos de
subsidios Food price protests Que chingue
su madre El PAN Yo como TORTILLA Le quieren
quitar los huevos al pueblo.
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• Time bomb
• Mexicoespecially its
• campois in a food
• security crisis.
• Maices criollos, quality

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• Time bomb
• Mexicoespecially its
• campois in a food
• security crisis.
• Maices criollos, quality
• Degraded diets e.g.,
• shorter Mayans

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• Time bomb
• Mexicoespecially its
• campois in a food
• security crisis.
• Maices criollos, quality
• Degraded diets
• shorter Mayans
• Shelter of the Milpa
• Coping strategies
• -Borrowing
• -Sell assets (land,
• livestock)
• -Eat less (what?)
• -Migrate (investment)
• -Request aid

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Stunting
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Rural families in southern Mexico lie at the
bottom of a vast and widening development gap.
Rural poverty continues unabated in this region.
Although the share of rural households living
in poverty improved to 73 in 2000, it was
still greater than in 1989. A greater share of
the rural population (46) lived in extreme
poverty (unable to meet basic food needs) in 2000
compared to a decade earlier (41).
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Undernutrition a lingering public health
problem, esp. stunting.
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Undernutrition a lingering public health
problem, esp. stunting.
Mean (1999) 18
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These dire family income circumstances fuel a
variety of outcomes undesirable from a public
policy standpoint, including rural-to-urban and
cross-border migrations.
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Somos olvidados (We are the forgotten.)
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• How did Mexicans vote in the
• last presidential election?
• Felipe Calderón
• Andrés Manuel López O.

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• How did Mexicans vote in
  the
• last presidential
  election?
• Felipe Calderón
• Andrés Manuel López O.

FC
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These dire family income circumstances fuel a
variety of outcomes undesirable from a public
policy standpoint, including rural-to-urban and
cross-border migrations. The future of
southern Mexico depends on the alleviation of
poverty (by increasing food production and food
security) and the economic growth to achieve
ittwo elements of the critical triangle of
development that also includes the environment.
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Chajul, Chiapas (Selva Lacondona)
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2010 Field Course Student diversity

• 5 colleges
• 5 degree programs
• 6 (8) departments

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Don René de la Cruz G. Ejido Vicente
Guerrero Mpo. Ocozocoautla, Chis.
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Artesanía Artistica con Telar de Pedal
María Luisa
Sebastián Núñez C.
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• Reasons
• Sons gone
• Reneged
• govt aid
• No micro-
• credit
• Market
• exclusion

Mothers tears
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Lunchtime
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• Federal support programs
• Cash transfersto whom?
• - Sanctions (punitive)
• - Class bias against small-
• holders (Procampo)
• Corruption
• Early 2008 Calderón
• announced US 20 billion
• for rural sector (agric)
• without specific program
• investments.

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Huitepec, Chis.
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Summit meeting
2009 field course day one
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Students witness life in todays Mayan world, and
problems faced by indigenous communities, and
magic of Mayan belief and places, where past
blends with present and with sacred rituals and
religious ceremony.
Men of maize
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Men of maize
vs men of clay, Popol Vuh
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"Experience Latin America was the kind of
course that made my education most worthwhile
the class I would design for myselfhands-on,
interdisciplinary international. Madeline
Snider

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Melissa with students of Mexiquito Courtesy
Melissa Minto
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Alejandra Little bugs eat mangoes too
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Tania weaving new understanding
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Emily bailarina bien vestida
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See Ismaels blog
http//www.ilr.cornell.edu/international/
Courtesy Ismael Belkhayat
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Korean ambassador
Suyeone getting to know you estilo
chiapaneco!
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Ya no viene más!
Courtesy Ismael Belkhayat
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