Crisis in Puebla’s Countryside

ByLa Jornada Editorial Board

This editorial originally appeared in the December 2, 2025 edition of La Jornada de Oriente, the Puebla edition of Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

The latest figures from INEGI leave no room for ambiguity: agriculture in Puebla is collapsing. In just one year, the primary sector lost 103,219 workers, falling from 620,354 employed individuals in the third quarter of 2024 to 517,135 in the same period of 2025. This is the most significant decline recorded in the country and confirms that the agony of Puebla’s agricultural sector is not a temporary phenomenon, but a structural one.

It is no coincidence: the effects of the pandemic have not been overcome; global economic pressures – including Donald Trump’s tariff threats – exacerbate uncertainty; and public policies still fail to build real protection for small and medium-sized producers, historically the most vulnerable.

Job insecurity is another component of the collapse. Of all those employed in agriculture, 99.2 percent lack benefits. This means that more than half a million workers face entire days without basic rights or access to healthcare.

This is compounded by distrust of the Secretariat of Rural Development. Allegations of inflated input costs and price gouging on seeds are exacerbating the rift between producers and state authorities in the sector. Recent road blockades and the lack of direct dialogue are symptoms of an institutional crisis that can no longer be concealed.

The INEGI figures not only describe a collapse: they demand a fundamental rethinking of the agricultural support model. Without this, Puebla risks normalizing the disappearance of its agricultural base and those who sustain it.