La legalidad en las políticas agrarias: México 1990–2005[Function law in agrarian policies: Mexico 1990-2005]

In support of public policy, the law anticipates Government projects so as to pave the way for them, or is adjusted along the way in order to adapt the institutional framework to the processes which in fact prevail. A typical case is that of Mexican Agrarian legislation in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. We propose here that recent developments in Agrarian legislation reveal the limitations of the modernizing strategy of the 1990s, which resulted in a call for the rural population to enter into alternative economic activities, as agriculture ceases to be the way of life for numerous families. We conclude that the restructuring of agricultural production in Mexico has excluded the productive and social dimensions. The reformulation of agrarian legal discourse demonstrates the structural limitations of advancement in terms of the agribusiness model. Now the sector’s economic policy priorities of growth and yield shift towards the instruments of social policy related to territorial construction.