Precedents of the Mexico Agricultural Program (1943-1965). The preliminaries of global agricultural transformation

Abstract

Mexico underwent a modernization process in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which extended to the agricultural sector. Among the various go­vernmental and private initiatives, the Mexico Agricultural Program stands out as a pivotal moment in Mexican agriculture and in the broader effort to export the American agricultural model globally. Drawing on primary sources and bibliographic studies, we reconstruct the perceptions held by American politicians and members of the Rockefeller Foundation regarding the state of Mexican agriculture, its political and social context, and the ways in which these views shaped the development of a program aimed at fostering agricul­tural advancement in Mexico.