Mexico: Company stores trap farmworkers in cycle of debt

Company stores, called tiendas de raya, are a stubborn vestige of an oppressive past. During the early 20th century hacienda era, they kept peasants buried in debt, fueling resentment that helped spark the Mexican Revolution.

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The country's export farms have modernized rapidly in recent years to meet U.S. food safety standards and satisfy Americans' appetite for fresh fruit and vegetables year-round. But the company stores operate as they have for generations: as mom-and-pop monopolies that sell to a captive clientele, post no prices and track purchases in dog-eared ledgers.

Farmworkers rely on the Campo Isabeles general store, saying that the nearest convenience store is too far from camp to reach by foot.

The tiendas play a key role in a farm labor system that holds workers in a kind of indentured servitude. The combination of low pay and high prices drives many deep in debt to the stores. They spend the picking season trying to catch up. Guards and barbed-wire fences deter workers from fleeing the camps and their unpaid bills.

At the end of the harvest, many head back to their mountain villages owing money to the stores. The debts are waiting for them when they return the next season, and the cycle continues.

The stores survive because there is no significant pressure on agribusinesses to provide something better for field laborers. To the extent U.S. retailers scrutinize conditions at Mexican farms, the focus is on food safety, not worker welfare. The social responsibility guidelines of most big companies don't mention company stores.

At many export farms, laborers fall in debt the moment they step off the bus. Most are from Mexico's impoverished indigenous regions. They typically have no money and won't be paid for a week or more. They need immediate credit, and the tiendas oblige.

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