latifundio

"The latifundio is the enemy of the country."

The latifundio system has been outlawed, with maximum ownership of 5,000 hectares allowed per person.

The presence of Franciscan-order priests also took hold, with many presiding along with landowners over huge latifundio estates and peons.

As in the past, latifundio areas with low yields and little irrigation were primarily devoted to the production of such traditional commodities as olive oil, grains, and wine.

One of these cooperatives asked for the expropriation of a latifundio (large estate) that had grown through the appropriation of smaller estates as their owners could not pay up their debts.

Land policy remained controversial until the 1930s, when there was a broader consensus for the titling of land to users of the land and mediating between latifundio and minifundio (small landholding).

The Chiapas state government looked favourably upon the migration of Indians to the Selva Lacandona, as it tended to reduce the pressure on land and particularly the demands for land reforms in parts of Chiapas where a latifundio system predominated.