EjidoEdit
Ejido is a distinctive form of land tenure in Mexico that dates to the country’s revolutionary agrarian reforms. In this system, land is owned collectively by a rural community and allocated for individual use through parcels that are assigned to families or households. The arrangement was designed to democratize landownership, reduce the power of large landowners, and provide a stable basis for rural livelihoods. Because land use is organized through a communal framework rather than private ownership of the entire property, ejidos have long required local decision-making through communal bodies and conventions that govern access, allocation, and management. The legitimacy and future of the ejido have been central questions in Mexico’s economic and social policy, especially as the country modernized and integrated with global markets.
Historically, the ejido arose from the broader program of agrarian reform that followed the Mexican Revolution. The 1917 Constitution enshrined the right of the state to redistribute land and to create communal parcels for peasants, a process that sought to prevent the re-concentration of land and to empower rural communities. Over the decades, millions of hectares were organized as ejidos or granted to indigenous and peasant communities, with the underlying aim of providing a stake in the land and reducing rural inequality. The governance of an ejido typically rests in a general assembly (asamblea) and an executive body often called the comisariado ejidal, which oversees land use, resource management, and compliance with community rules. Parcels within an ejido—often called parcelas—are allocated to individual members for farming and living, while the land itself remains collectively owned by the community as a whole. For a long period, the system restricted the sale or transfer of land to non-ejidatarios, reinforcing the social purpose of the reform.
The structure and operation of an ejido blend traditional community authority with formal legal frameworks. The asamblea ejidal, made up of all members, sets policy, approves budgets, and resolves disputes. The comisariado ejidal functions as the executive arm, handling day-to-day administration, applications for land use, and coordination of shared resources such as irrigation and communal facilities. Land within an ejido is allocated as parcelas to families, but ownership remains with the community. Heirship and transfer of use rights within the ejido are possible, though rules are set by the assembly and can be subject to approval by the community. The system has often also involved a system of governance around water access, rural credit, and local infrastructure, with the state frequently supporting or regulating these processes Agrarian reform and Land reform.
The ejido has yielded both social stability and economic challenge. On the positive side, it helped distribute land more broadly, provided rural families with a secure basis for agriculture, and reduced the risk of land grabs by elites. The communal dimension also supported village-level governance and local cooperation in managing scarce water and other resources, which can be essential for irrigation and productivity in arid or semi-arid zones. In many communities, ejidos became the backbone of local development, tying land to social provision, schooling, and basic infrastructure. The system also helped preserve cultural and regional identities by keeping land within communities that had long-standing ties to their territory. For many smallholders, the ejido represented a doorway to economic opportunity and intergenerational security, rather than a mere transfer of land.
Critics, however, point to significant inefficiencies and limits imposed by the ejido arrangement. The restrictions on transferring land to outsiders, combined with the difficulty of using ejido land as collateral, have historically limited access to private credit and investment. This is a key reason why rural finance and private sector investment have often lagged in ejido-dominated areas compared to more open land tenure environments. The parcel-based structure of many ejidos, with small, widely dispersed plots, can hinder economies of scale, reduce aggregate productivity, and complicate large-scale irrigation and market-oriented farming. Governance challenges in some communities—such as nepotism, factionalism, or slow decision-making—have also undermined efficiency and accountability. In the period of economic liberalization, critics argued that the rigidity of the old system deterred investment and prevented Mexican agriculture from achieving the productivity gains seen in other economies, especially where markets and infrastructure were strong enough to reward efficiency and innovation. This debate has often centered on whether the ejido’s social protections should be preserved in tandem with market-driven reforms that unlock private capital and technology.
Contemporary policy has sought to reconcile the social purpose of agrarian reform with the benefits of a more open property regime. The constitutional reforms of the early 1990s liberalized many aspects of the ejido system, allowing for the sale or lease of ejido rights to private parties, and permitting the division of parcels and conversion of land to private property under certain conditions. These changes aimed to attract investment, improve productivity, and integrate rural land into broader economic networks while maintaining the social safety net built around land tenure. The reforms preserved the possibility of communal governance and access to land for rural families but provided a pathway for individual rights to be recognized in a way that could be used to obtain credit, mortgage land, or transfer rights to others under market mechanisms. The effects of these reforms have been uneven, varying by region, and have been a focal point of political and policy debates about how best to balance social equity with economic efficiency. The debate continues over how to preserve rural livelihoods and community cohesion while expanding the role of private investment and market incentives in agriculture.
The discussion surrounding the ejido also intersects with broader debates about indigenous rights, rural development, and Mexico’s integration into global markets. Episodes such as the Zapatista movement in the mid-1990s highlighted how land tenure, cultural autonomy, and economic opportunity intersect in complex ways, especially in marginalized regions. Proponents of market-oriented reforms argue that secure property rights, access to private credit, and the removal of restrictive transfer rules can unleash investment, raise productivity, and improve living standards for rural households. Critics contend that rapid privatization or market liberalization can erode traditional community structures and undermine long-standing social commitments to equitable access to land. In this tension, the empirical experiences of different ejidos—some pursuing pragmatic privatization while others maintaining communal norms—illustrate the varied paths rural Mexico has followed as it modernizes.