Asuntos de vecinos: Langosta, defensa agrícola y la construcción de la sanidad vegetal en México y Centroamérica, siglo xx

Abstract

This article studies the combat of locust plagues in Mexico and Central America in the first half of the 20th century. Among others, the most important locust plague has been that of Schistocerca piceifrons Walker, a transboundary plague, shared among these neighboring countries since pre-Hispanic times. The article studies the fight against this acridium in two moments: first, a national one, in Mexico, in the 1920s, which focuses mainly on the campaigns against lobster in Yucatan and Veracruz; and then, a second moment, Mexican-Central American, between 1940-1950, with the formation of the International Technical Committee to fight lobster in Mexico and Central America. The analysis of the first local and national stage of the locust campaigns reconstructs how and with what normative instruments and scientific and institutional devices it was sought to combat and control the plague in the Gulf and the Yucatan peninsula, explaining the emergence of a public policy State and federal funds for agricultural defense. The second moment, the Mexican-Central American campaign against acridium between the decades of 1940-1950, is studied as an experience that overflowed the principles and methods of national agricultural defense, leading to the creation of organisms for control and supervision of animal and plant health. at the transnational level, to intergovernmental agreements and to the creation of devices and instruments for scientific, technical and health cooperation for the entire Mesoamerican area, powered by FAO. The article argues that the transnational lobster interconnected various bioregions in its path, promoting both local control measures as well as national and supranational normalization of plant protection and health policies and applied entomological research, thus contributing to the birth of an agricultural biogeopolitics in Mexico. and Central America.