Main Challenges of Rural Development Strategies Through Tourism and Agriculture Linkages in Mexico

Abstract

SUMMARYAddressing the model of extensive rural development in Mexico, as well as based on family production units (households) strategies formulation to establish linkages between agriculture and tourism such as Pluriactivity and Propoor Tourism, necessarily implies deepening historical analysis of the governmental intervention processes. Added to this, it is crucial to refine its study based on sociological tools which will allow a more complete and comprehensive understanding of the internal dynamics of the Mexican rural family, their trade difficulties within the market and the changeling relation between the city and the countryside. Despite the efforts in the application of rural development strategies and public policies to strengthen the agricultural sector in conjunction with other economic activities such as tourism, the lack of application of participative methodologies in the elaboration of diagnoses focused on the formulation of these, constitutes one of the main causes of the failure of projects such as the insertion of Pro poor tourism initiatives or farming Pluriactivity, due to the incompatibility of these with the economic, historical, social and cultural particularities of the Mexican peasant families. It is in this sense that the present analysis is developed, thus providing relevant data for research, debate and structuring new policies aimed at improving the agricultural sector through tourism.