Poverty and Illegal drug Trade In Mexico.

Tysen, Swathwood
Poverty Begins, 1980’s
 The worldwide price fall for oil
in the 1980’s.
 This caused Mexico to lose
there major source of revenue
 Without money Mexico is
unable to pay off foreign
debts.
Solution?
 Mexico needed help, a loan,
from the IMF, which suggested
deep cuts on government
funding
 When funds went down, so did
the standard of living
 Already poor farmers begin to feel
the effect on their living
 Around 1.5 million of Mexico’s
population uses subsistence farming
(farming only enough to keep them
alive) this means they make no
income.
 Around 10% is commercial farming
which will buy land from family farms
and only pay for cheap labor.
 Some people are unable to farm at
all due to the high price of corn in
Mexico, which they use to plant or
feed live stock.
 The landless population of Mexico is
around 700,000.
 If farmers cant make money off of corn
or grain, they turn to a different crop…
cocaine
 Cocaine is a quick and easy way for
farmers to make thousands or even
hundreds of thousands fast.
 Its easy to grow (especially when its
practically in your back yard)
 It is also cheap to afford so long as you
are close to the source, Columbia,
Bolivia, Peru. (which Mexico is)
 Once farmers produce (or buy) cocaine
all they have to do is jump the border to
the U.S. to sell
 Price starts usually around $1-$24 per
gram, near the source, in the U.S. it’s
$300 or more per gram.
 This encourages many poor farmers to
turn to cocaine for quick earnings for
more land to produce more cocaine.
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