Agriculture in Mexico has been an important sector of the country’s economy historically and politically even though now it accounts for a very small percentage of Mexico’s GDP. Mexico is one of the cradles of human agriculture with the Mesoamericans developing domesticated plants such as corn, beans, chili peppers, squash and more. During the colonial period, the Spanish introduced more plants but also the concept of domesticated animals, principally cattle, goats and sheep. Farming from the colonial period until the Mexican Revolution was focused on large private properties. After the Revolution these were broken up and the land redistributed. However, since the latter 20th century NAFTA and economic policies have again favored large scale commercial agricultural holdings. Mexico’s main crops include grains such as corn and wheat, tropical fruits and various vegetables. Agricultural exports are important, especially coffee, tropical fruits and winter fruits and vegetables. Sixty percent of Mexico’s agricultural exports go to the United States.
Famous quotes containing the words agriculture and/or mexico:
“In past years, the amount of money that has had to be been spent on armaments, great and small, instead of on productive industry and agriculture and the arts, has been a disgrace to all of us in every part of the world.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Is this what all these soldiers, all this training, have been for these seventy-nine years past? Have they been trained merely to rob Mexico and carry back fugitive slaves to their masters?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)