Year : 2003-2004

Country : Mexico

Team leader : Sergio Omar Saldaña Zorilla

Team member(s) : -

Mentor(s) : Dr. Joanne Linerooth-Bayer, Dr. Reinhard Mechler

Partner organisation(s) : Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM), Mexico City

Programme regional center : UW-DMC

Project code : 096MEX

For more information :

• Project brief [pdf, 2 pages]
• Final report in UWDMC publication [PDF, 0.4 MB]
• PhD dissertation [pdf, 3 MB]

keywords : Agriculture,  Indicators,  Economic analysis,  Mexico 

Project summary :

The agricultural sector in Mexico boasts 4% of the GDP compared to 68% from services, and 28% from industry. However, this sector employs 68% of the population in extreme and moderate poverty in rural areas. Moreover, Mexican agriculture is highly vulnerable to weather-related disasters. Based on this, a natural disaster strategy for agriculture is crucial for poverty and inequality reduction in Mexico.

The objective of this project was to make recommendations to the Mexican government in order to efficiently allocate resources to reduce financial vulnerability to natural disasters in agriculture, to minimize the negative effects of disasters on public infrastructure, and to build an efficient, accountable and transparent reconstruction system for this sector. The project analyzed selected policy options (e.g. government-supported insurance schemes) to reduce the vulnerability of small-scale farmers. It also made use of existing surveys and of quantitative analyses, and stakeholders interviews.

Project findings:

In general, the research found a lack of an integral vision on the risk exposure of Mexican agriculture and the will to address it. This rendered some financial instruments more transitory to deal with poverty, inequity, and vulnerability in the countryside. It was recommended that vulnerability assessments could greatly contribute to really achieve sustainable progresses if integrated into a broader policy of economic development.