Rise and decline of rice activity in Sinaloa, Mexico: 1960–2010

Abstract

The research that we developed about rice in Mexico reflects the importance of the product had for one of the most important agricultural areas in the country, as is the case of Sinaloa, a space that for more than a hundred years has been considered the granary of Mexico for its high volume in the production of corn, chickpea and other grains such as rice, grass that was introduced in the entity in the mid-twentieth century and reached its peak in the decades from 1960 to 1990. Its cultivation captured the interest of the large agricultural entrepreneurs of the region, who saw in this cereal a niche of opportunities that had an impact on the production, industrialization, and marketing of grain and its derivatives. Sinaloa became, in a few years, the most important entity in the country as a rice producer, to extend that into an agri-foodsystem with representative characteristics of the agro-industrial districts. However, and due to the effect of neoliberal policies, which allowed the importation of rice from other countries, as well as droughts and other factors that did not favor internal cultivation, after 1990, the activity lost importance in Sinaloa until disappearing from the landscape in 2010.