Client relationship

The typical purchasing process consists of the following sequence of events: problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior (^{Kotler and Keller, 2006}). In this last section where the problem lies, since corn producers, throughout their trajectory, have established clientelistic relationships with the few local organizations; that is, there is only an approach when they need support in managing a problem, at the moment that the problem is solved they abandon the link with the organization that supported them. This dynamic, which we call patronage, prevents the consolidation of a stable long-term relationship between the producer and the organization.

Lack of time for producers

When a producer approaches an organization in search of support for the solution of a problem (client relationship), its needs to invest a great amount of time to find said solution, due to the generalized bureaucratic inefficiency of the institutions in Mexico. The average producer has a busy schedule, either because he is busy carrying out his agricultural activities or because he has other economic activities to attend to, seeing limited his available time that he can invest in the search for a solution to his problem. The little free time of the producer generates an increase in their opportunity cost (^{Lozano-Rodríguez, 2016}), which limits the possibilities of local organization and generates a general lack of interest.

Demagogy of organizations

The word demagoguery serves to negatively qualify the way of doing politics of one who seeks only easy consensus (^{Paze, 2016}). Local organizations, such as common s and the livestock association, periodically have meetings to discuss the agenda. The attendance to them is not obligatory for the producers, however, those who do not attend argue that in these meetings there is too much talk and little is agreed upon, where they also fall into demagoguery; that is, things are promised (which are rarely kept) to reach easy agreements. These meetings are considered by many producers as a mere formalism, where they simulate doing something productive for the common benefit.

Favoritism in government subsidies

The dynamics of government subsidies or support are totally beyond the reach of local organizations, since the resource of these comes from the federal and state level, which implies that the guidelines to be able to access resources, in the same way, are established by the corresponding federal and state institutions. Thus, local organizations only act as managers or facilitators of the bureaucracy. In the guidelines of the various programs, the series of requirements necessary to access resources are established, requirements that are only fully satisfied by a very limited number of producers year after year, which is why the idea that subsidies permeates they reach the same people by favoritism. This situation causes the ordinary producer to feel mistrust towards organizations and decide not to approach them for help.

Idea that organizations respond to political or personal interests

It is difficult to escape the idea that an organization, whatever it may be, responds to certain personal or political interests, since as ^{Schmitter (1974)} mentions, social organization is often subordinate to the political party. Similarly, when there is a conflict of interest, it is difficult to perform the duties that are given to a person and their legitimacy in the eyes of the public is reduced (^{García-González, 2015}). In this society, there are few people who help selflessly. The producers themselves think that local organizations respond to political or personal interests and that, to receive any benefit from belonging to it at some point, you will have to return any favor received in some way or another. The fact that producers perceive local organizations in this way prevents them from building a better organization.

Corn production in small private property (smallholding)

The defunct ^{Banco Nacional Agropecuario (1975)} pointed out that smallholder exploitation of land represents the main obstacle to the development of the agricultural sector. In this sense, most of the corn production in the study municipality is carried out on common lands, however, an important part of the production is carried out on small private property. The production of corn in this type of land tenure generates a kind of isolation for the proprietary producers, leading them on a path that only seeks to maximize their personal benefit. In the commons, there is constant communication between all producers since collective decisions have to be made, so these producers, in addition to seeking personal benefit, also seek long-term collective benefit. In this way, for purposes of peasant organization, it is argued that a common producer is more willing to participate in an organization that fosters common benefit than a small private property producer, since the latter has not experienced any benefit from the organization.

Lack of financial resources

Organizing has a cost, which no one is willing to face today. The greatest cost of the organization is the opportunity or indirect cost, because a producer or group of producers who take the initiative to create a new organization must or must invest, mostly at the beginning, a large amount of time and material resources. Today, no one is willing to incur that cost and no one wants to suffer the physical and emotional wear and tear of taking the lead in starting (or at least trying to start) a new organization.

Lack of an organizational culture

The organizational culture allows the members of an organization, certain behaviors and inhibits others. When this exists, little resistance to change and shared values are observed in its members, such as honesty, professionalism, discipline and solidarity, which in turn leads to better conflict resolution (^{Charon Durive, 2007}). The lack of association in the municipality could be explained in part because there are no natural resources for common use except for the water from the ‘San Cristobal’ dam, which is used to irrigate corn in the study municipality. For the administration of this resource there is an informal organization of producers, which arose due to need. At this point it is presumed that if there were more resources for common use, there would also be more peasant organizations, formal and informal, and therefore one could speak of a ‘culture’ of the organization.

Unwell peasant leaders

Those who would be most likely to start a new peasant organization are the local peasant leaders; however, there is a problem with them: the high opportunity cost of their time given their daily work activities. For this reason, it is practically impossible for them to decide to put aside their work that generates income and dedicate part of their valuable time to an activity, which, as already mentioned in the previous sections, generates large direct and indirect costs. This initiative to organize could come from an external agent, but to date there is no public policy that tries to promote organization, furthermore, in the present work there was no glimpse of an interest of the producers themselves to organize themselves, an essential requirement for them to reach adopt an associative figure, this according to the ^{Banco Nacional Agropecuario (1975)}.

Envy

The RAE defines envy as sadness or regret for the good of others, or desire for something that is not possessed. In short, envy is the desire to obtain something that another person possesses and that one lacks, mainly achievements and rewards. In organizational matters, ^{Jimenez (2016)} says that envy can generate a negative attitude in people (indisposition) when they do not perceive a situation of equity. In this sense, if envy is a feeling that permeates among corn producers in the municipality, it is possible that they may have the indisposition to help each other in advance, since they are perceived in different situations or realities, a situation that is detrimental to peasant associations.

Bad experiences in past personal associations

To understand the functioning of rural organizations, we must give importance to micro-stories and the relationships between people, families and groups (^{Gómez, 2017}). It is common to find that groups of two or more corn producers at some point in their lives were associated in the search for mutual benefits, whether they have shared agricultural machinery implements, planted together, bought inputs together, etc. However, the vast majority of these personal associations have failed due to disagreements, mainly derived from economic misunderstandings, leaving an unfavorable experience in the minds of the producers who were involved, which is why it would be unlikely that they would be motivated to start or participate in a new association, even if it is of another nature and with different objectives.

Search for benefits in the short term

The fundamental reason why the producers of the municipality could one day organize is, in practical terms, the search for profits in the short term. This can be explained with the figure of the rational maximizing individual, since expecting benefits in the long term represents a higher opportunity cost (^{Lozano-Rodríguez, 2016}). However, the organizations' efforts are delayed, for this reason, any peasant organization would be in a position to report benefits to producers only in the medium and long term. It is precisely this difference of interests in the terms, one of the main causes that prevents the creation of a new organization.

Lack of a public policy that encourages the organization

The current public policy does not have the main objective of promoting the creation of peasant economic organizations. By historical nature, local peasant organizations were born from the own initiative of the producers involved, where they themselves take the first steps towards organization and once they have laid the foundations, they seek some kind of organizational advice that allows them to grow. However, to facilitate this process, the presence of a person who acts as a promoter of the peasant organization (agent of change) would be necessary and for this, the presence and support of the State is undoubtedly required or, failing that, a patron or political party interested in promoting local peasant organizations. Either way, the idea is that the latter will mostly absorb the cost of the organization.

Lack of information

The fact that the municipality does not have an agent of change, promoter of peasant associations, means that the average producer does not have the possibility of being duly informed about the possible benefits of belonging to a peasant economic organization where common objectives are pursued. As already mentioned, the fact of having incomplete or asymmetric information reduces the possibilities of making adequate decisions (^{Varian, 2010}). This element is the last link in a vicious circle: firstly, there is no general interest of producers to organize themselves, secondly, the State does not have as a priority to promote peasant economic organizations and, lastly, it does not exist in the municipality an independent agent of change that seeks to improve the conditions of producers; through associativity.

Feasibility is not displayed

All the above points mean that the average producer does not consider the creation of an organization possible (feasible), so he will hardly endeavor to fight for something that he believes in advance impossible. This general reasoning could also be seen as a barrier to peasant organization, since it has become a prejudice today.

Benefits and costs of the organization in the production of corn

In this section, for the analysis of the benefits that result from associativity, those reported by ^{Quintana (2014)} were used. This author proposes as main benefits of associativity the reduction of production costs, economies of scale in marketing and production, technical advisory services for increasing production, financing and better living conditions for rural families. On the other hand, the opportunity costs for the average producer are interpreted as those benefits that are lost due to not being organized and their importance lies in the fact that they negatively impact the corn productivity (Figure 1) of the municipality (^{Quintana, 2014}).

Figure 1 Corn cultivation in the study area. 

In this research, emphasis is placed on the costs for the average producer, since it is one of the objectives pursued and given that they represent the reality of the corn activity today. The benefits and costs of the organization in the production of corn are presented in Table 3.

The right column of Table 3 shows the list of opportunity costs or benefits that the average local producer loses year after year, due to the simple fact of not having the support of a solid corn organization. You will delve into each of them below.

Purchase of expensive supplies

The average producer generally purchases his agro-inputs individually in establishments within the same locality or close to the municipality for various reasons. In the first place, getting these agro-inputs in distant places is not profitable due to the costs of the transfer and its low volume of purchase, secondly, the local corn producer has a liquidity problem and finally, there is no organization that manages a collective purchase to obtain benefits from economies of scale, such as a reduction in costs and an increase in productivity and efficiency of a company, this according to ^{Trujillo (2011)}. This causes the producer to be unable to obtain reduced prices. Local establishments sell agricultural inputs at market prices and on many occasions, as part of a commercial strategy, they extend personal lines of credit to each producer they trust. It is difficult for the individual producer to be tempted to break with these dynamics and ties that, although it does not bring him benefits by price if it does so through credit with zero interest.

Sale of the product to local buyers

The municipality’s corn buyers could be divided into two groups, the first being simple hoarders; that is, those people whose objective is to do business with the sale of the product. The second group of buyers are those who use corn as an input to another production process, mainly the fattening of livestock and pigs. The problem is that both types of corn buyers use the regional market price to set their purchase price at harvest, which varies a few hundred pesos depending on the harvest season (which generally runs from November to January) and between buyers. In many cases, it is personal affinities and payment conditions that make a producer choose a specific buyer. According to ^{Muñoz et al. (2017)}, when there are no adequate marketing schemes, producers become dependent on intermediaries and coyotaje, which results in low sales prices. The fact that each producer sells their product in isolation and that their market is mainly local hoarders means that they have little negotiating power, thus preventing them from reaching a competitive sale price that helps improve the profitability of their corn activity.

Worst technical advice

A technology is a combination of all management practices to produce a crop (^{Sangerman-Jarquín et al., 2009}). The development of technologies depends on the institutions and the protagonists (^{Albicette-Batreri and Chiappe-Hernández, 2012}). In this sense, it is more feasible for a peasant organization to hire expert technical advice than an isolated producer, the foregoing for a purely cost issue. For the isolated producer, it is unaffordable to hire the advice of an expert to advise him to increase his productivity. On the other hand, technical advice can also affect the quantity and quality of information that producers have about future corn prices on the Chicago Stock Exchange. In economics, it is assumed that the more information an economic agent has about a good or market, it will be in a position to make better decisions (^{Varian, 2010}). In this sense, the corn producers of Huandacareo, by not having an organizational structure that provides them with reliable information on the future prices of their product, run the risk of making erroneous decisions or based on incomplete or asymmetric information.

Slow technology adoption

The adoption of technology is usually a slow process in Mexican agriculture and the municipality of Huandacareo is no exception. The theory of diffusion of innovations tells us that the adoption of new technology is a matter and an individual decision, therefore, it is affected by factors of knowledge, availability of economic and physical resources and to a large extent, by the disposition of the producer to partially or totally change their traditional form of production (Mendoza, 1987 cited by ^{González, 2004}).

^{Uddin (2006)} refers to innovation when an idea (knowledge), product or process is incorporated into production or practice. In the study municipality, the main limitations in the adoption of technology is the limited availability of economic resources of the corn producers, given that conventional technological innovations are expensive, as well as the little willingness of the producers to change, since in its production logic incorporating an innovation into the corn handling system, in addition to increasing production costs, also increases uncertainty, since the efficiency of the new technology incorporated is unknown. The previous thing causes the process of adoption of new technologies to be slow, which prevents being at the technological forefront and ultimately impacting the productivity of corn.

Credit

Lack of access to formal credit and comprehensive financial intermediation services impede agricultural development (^{FAO-GTZ, 2001}). The credit managed by some exemplary peasant organizations is a source of low-cost financial resources that producers use to buy inputs of sufficient quality to move towards a higher-yielding maize management system. With this technological package, it is possible to considerably increase, ceteris paribus, the productivity of corn and therefore, the economic benefits of the activity for the producer. The fact that the average producer does not have a reliable source of low-cost credit prevents the adoption of higher-yield technologies, which has a negative impact on the profitability of the corn activity, putting its sustainability at risk. In previous sections it was mentioned that producers have personal loans with local agro-input distributors; however, they do not have the backing of an organization that allows them to acquire better quality inputs, that is, this personal credit is used only to acquire low-cost and quality agricultural inputs for fear of over-indebtedness.

Reduction of the economic growth of the rural family and the municipality

The first and main beneficiary of a profitable corn activity is undoubtedly the producer and his family. The second big beneficiary is the municipality. If, due to the absence of an efficient peasant organization, the producers do not have the necessary conditions to maximize profits, due to the fact of not being able to solve financial or technical problems, money will be left on the table - this phrase comes from the world of poker and means wasting business opportunities to earn more money, which are there but are not taken care of-, something detrimental to the producer's economy and to the local and regional economy. According to ^{Johnson and Mellor (1962)}, agriculture can make a net contribution to the capital needed for fixed investment and the subsequent growth of secondary industry, thus playing a very important role in the economic growth of a region.