Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies

In February, 1981, the Center for US-Mexican Studies hosted a Binational Consultation on US-Mexican Agricultural Relations. The consultation sought to define the nature, causes, and consequences of flows of labor, capital, technology, and agricultural commodities across the US-Mexican border and to identify fruitful areas for additional research. Sections of the consultation were devoted to US-Mexican agricultural trade in an era of oil wealth and “food power”; Mexico’s crisis of production in the small-farm sector; public policy toward agriculture an rural development in Mexico; the Mexican Food System (SAM); Mexican labor in the US; the organization of farm workers in both countries; and the effects of migration on rural Mexican communities. Because of the publicity and controversy surrounding the initiation and performance of SAM, this monograph devotes special attention to the session of the consultation in which SAM was discussed and makes an effort to assess the experience of the SAM in the two years that followed the 1981 meeting.