Processes of change in agricultural activity and impact on land fragmentation in the southern region of the state of Tlaxcala

In Mexico, the processes of change in geographical areas with agricultural activity have resulted in a deterioration in their economic conditions in at least three decades. The agricultural policy implemented had a negative impact on peasant families due to the fact that large techno-productive regional concentrations were favored, giving an advantage to business groups and marginalizing small-scale corn growers in heavily parceled areas and small farmlands, without hydroagricultural infrastructure or guaranteed prices that would have allowed sustaining the cultivation of corn. The objective of the study was to recognize the changes that the population with agricultural activities has undergone in the production units and in family organization in the south of the state of Tlaxcala, after the impact of the structural adjustment policy. The methodology was based on qualitative analysis and descriptive statistics obtained from selected interviews and focus groups, for which 216 questionnaires were applied to families with agricultural activities. The main results indicate that the population followed an internal division of labor process, increasing those who completely stopped working on their farms after decades of dividing their time between agricultural and non-agricultural activity in order to cover the costs of maize production. Without their multiple low-income labor condition ensuring the reproduction of each productive cycle, all of them have suffered further economic deterioration.