Briefing Papers Number 11, January 2011 | Page 11

Non-Agricultural Rural Labor The FDC is also helping non-agricultural rural productive investment. According to the World Bank, non-agricultural rural labor is a key part of the overall rural economy. “The demand for labor, even for low-wage workers, will not increase without a dynamic rural economy in both agriculture and the nonfarm sector.”57 Because of the FDC’s savings and loan program, rural entrepreneurs have been able to acquire loans to start small non-farm enterprises in the countryside. Antonio Garcia, 25, returned to Chihuahua after working at a Texas construction site for only four months. Garcia had the foresight to know he wanted to work in the United States temporarily, save money, and return to Mexico to invest in a small business. “I never wanted to work for someone else,”58 Garcia said. After returning to Chihuahua, Garcia invested his savings in the machinery for a concrete block www.bread.org Andrew Wainer old FDC member Arturo Caraveo said. Caraveo immigrated to the United States in 1991 and worked as a custodian in Los Angeles. Now he works with the FDC’s new apple tree nursery that is being used to produce more lucrative brands of apples—such as Galas—to seed new orchards. “If you plant new orchards there’s a chance to create something over time, to provide more income,” Caraveo said. “But it’s going to take [a few] years.” Key to the project is the long-term vision of regenerating the agricultural sector for small farmers. Since increased income can be used on consumer goods or even to fund migration, it is important that projects emphasize long-term productive investment and job creation. While education, health, governance, and other components of foreign assistance are important, investments in productive activities that provide jobs and stable livelihoods are the mostly likely to reduce migration pressures. Small apple farmer Isidro Molinar said that project funding administered by the FDC has helped his family plant additional trees, fumigate the orchards, buy fertilizer, upgrade insect control, and purchase anti-hail netting. The project also reunited the Molinar family, whose members had been dispersed for 10 years. Molinar’s three brothers have slowly returned to Chihuahua from the United States—the latest in the summer of 2010. While they might have just waited out the recession and returned once the U.S. economy recovered, they are finding work on the family farm. When asked if he was concerned that his brothers would re-immigrate to the United States, Molinar said, “They are not even thinking about it now. We are pl