PRIVATIZING THE PRIVATE FAMILY FARMER - NAFTA AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE MEXICAN DAIRY SECTOR

This article explores a much neglected class of rural producers in Mex ico, commercial family farmers, whose position in a globalizing politi cal economy is treated as either unproblematic or ignored altogether i n the agrarian literature. I contend that these small-scale capitalist farmers, as well as their peasant and ejidal counterparts, are being ''privatized'' under Mexico's new neoliberal agricultural policies, cu lminating with the passage and implementation of NAFTA. While it might seem logical that capitalist farmers oriented toward commercial produ ction would be pre-adapted for this new free-market model, they are in stead subject to new rules for operating in an increasingly hostile, c ompetitive market. In 1993 small commercial dairy farmers in north-cen tral Guanajuato began to seek new organizational forms with which to a chieve better market integration and increase profits during a period marked by falling milk prices, increasingly scarce and expensive credi t, removal of subsidies, and rising costs of production. Noteworthy am ong their strategies was the formation of marketing cooperatives. An a nalytical framework drawn from the new institutional economics is empl oyed to understand and explain the cooperative strategy and why it suc ceeded in one case and failed in another. A third case, sketched brief ly, outlines the initial attempts by an ejido to form a cooperative an d create a joint venture with external interests. The article conclude s by suggesting several policy recommendations to support Mexico's fal tering dairy sector.