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Show Page y THE HERALD, Provo, Utah, A8 Thursday, October 11, 1990 foiecf modernizes farms, creates jo Mexico (AP) -VAQUERIAS, He's no sweating campesino, this cab of a man in the computerized tractor. He turned down the stereo and gazed at rows of bean stalks swaying in the wind. "I think it will go well for us," Juan Espinoza said of the coming harvest. "There is no need to leave now, because there is work here." Espinoza belongs to the Vaquer-ia- s Project, created in June. It joins private investors with peasants to modernize unproductive farms, create jobs and stem the flow of undocumented workers to the United States. Food imports, including beans MON.-THU10-7:3- and corn, are expected to surmount $4 billion this year and th ; goal of in food remains elusive. About 45 percent of Mexicans are malnourished. "The campesino is he is not dying of hunger, but he does not provide enough to feed the rest of Mexico or to increase his standard of living," said Pablo Livas Cantu, director of the Integral Development of the Mexican trust that Countryside, a administers the Vaquerias Project. Mexican farm workers, with no jobs at home, flee to the United States. More than 880,000 were caught trying to cross the border non-pro- fit illegally between October 1989 and July, according to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Livas said the project 130 miles southeast of Monterrey has united GAMESA, a flour and cookie company, with about 400 people who work on 12,350 acres of small and ejidos, or cooperative land-holdin- gs farms. A total of $12 million was invested, 50 percent by GAMESA, 15 percent by the state government and 35 percent through debt swaps with the federal government. The swap money was used to build warehouses, a sprinkler system, power lines, roads, pumping sta tates and distribute it to peasants under the ejido system. Peasants have the hereditary right to work a the farmers guaranteed a minimum 8 percent of the estimated crop value in case of a total crop failure. Land tenant rights have been a passionate issue in Mexico since the revolution of 1910 was fought to establish them. Issues of private investment and modernization are fairly new. Peasants seeking land rallied to Emiliano Zapata's cry of "Land and liberty!" during the revolution and helped bring down the government of Gen. Porfirio Diaz. The Agrarian Reform Act of 1915 gave the government the right to expropriate portions of large es tions and offices. Swaps involve investors buying discounted government debt, which the treasury then buys back at full value in Mexican currency. The investors agree to invest the money in specified types of projects within Mexico, such as infrastructure and tourism development. The Vaquerias program will operate for 12 years, the estimated time needed to recover the investment. Then the farm workers can buy the high-tec- h equipment, like the $125,000 tractor Espinoza uses, at 25 percent of the original cost. Profits will be divided evenly by GAMESA and the campesinos, with plot of land collectively or individually, but cannot sell or rent it. More than 75 percent of all Mexican farms are ejidos, and the system has created some problems ; as Mexico modernizes. Since ejido rights are inherited, ' parcels tend to shrink with each generation as families grow. Petitions for more land can be filed, but the wait often is long. Ejido land cannot be used as collateral, so peasants must rely on , the government for credit at inter-- . est rates of up to 30 percent. 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