42 The Global Food System
Mexican Indians and modern agriculture
After centuries of avoiding incorporation into the wider culture of what is now
Mexico, the Yaqui Indians of Sonora, situated in the north of Mexico and border-
ing the Gulf of California, have been entirely changed by rapid integration into the
modern way of farming (Hewitt de Alcantara, 1976). They had been known for
their tradition of strong social cohesion, cultivation of a great diversity of crops,
and the use and management of wild foods, including wild fruits and oysters. They
relied on small-scale water harvesting and irrigation structures to irrigate their
crops from the seasonal rivers. But this has all changed.
In the 1940s, modern water control projects at Potam in the Yaqui Valley
began to divert water to commercial farms. As more water was removed, the river
ran low, making many families’ plots unusable. Yaqui agriculture began to be
undermined as they were coerced into joining the government scheme so as to
have access to water. At the time, the state was trying to assure the permanent
tranquillity of the tribe, and it was felt that commercializing Yaqui agriculture
through water control and the formation of collective credit societies would help.
During the 1950s, farmers were grouped into 40 credit societies, each containing
some 30 members and their plots were joined to form the common land for each
society. But external banks were given complete control of all farming decisions.
Farmers had to grow wheat and cotton, and soon only 10 per cent of land was left
under maize-beans-squash, with 90 per cent under wheat and cotton. The varied
production of fruit and vegetables noted by visitors 20 years earlier had disap-
peared.
The local people had lost control over their own land, and the social and eco-
nomic changes were significant. ‘Instead of preparing and working their family
plots by hand, using seeds from previous crops and silt from periodic river flood-
ings, Yaqui cultivators found themselves observing the march of tractors and com-
bines driven by bank employees across common land planted with high-yielding
seeds and fertilized with chemical products. Most Yaqui indians intervened them-
selves only occasionally, when some menial task like cleaning irrigation canals or
picking cotton demanded unskilled labour.’ (Hewitt de Alcantara, 1976)
As a result of complete control by federal employees and no local participation
or involvement, feeder canals soon became blocked, land badly levelled, fertilizer
applied incorrectly and planting dates missed. Yields of wheat were too low to
repay the loans which local credit societies had forced them to take on. All local
households were heavily in debt in the early 1960s. Despite the Yaqui’s fear of
water, the government tried to set up a fishing cooperative. This failed. They tried
a cattle cooperative, but this was run by a local bank and so lands were quickly
overgrazed.
By the early 1970s, the whole process had thoroughly undermined traditional
institutions, not least the family. It had ceased to be a productive unit, and its dis-
integration had led to clashes between the old and young, and a weakening of
traditional religious and cultural components of life. Ceremonies previously good