Chiapas Issues In America

Agriculture and forestry are very important to the population there. Livestock, forestry and fishing employ over 53% of the state’s population; however, its productivity is considered low (Knoema,pg.1). Some of their major crops are corn, beans, coffee, soybeans, peanuts, sesame seeds, cacao, sugar cane, mangos, bananas, etc.

To better understand Chiapas situation and environment one can analyze their statistics. Their life expectancy at birth is 74.0 years. That is about 4 years less than the United States of America. Total fertility rate is 2.50 and the number of births they have is 69,735. The number of deaths they have are 21,199. It is amazing how the number of births are more than 3 times as the number of deaths. For the medical staff there are

Infant Mortality Rate is 14.0 which is alarmingly high. That is almost 3 times more than the U.S. infant mortality rate (Knoema,pg.1). All these statistics are very useful when observing poverty and access to healthcare.

Poverty is a major concern and issue in Mexico. Chiapas is a site of tourism and has beautiful views. It is ironic how Chiapas is loaded with natural resources and still is the poorest region in Mexico. In Chiapas there are people who live in flimsy shacks made from garbage they scavenge. Children also help their parents scavenge in order to provide for the family. “noontime meal that was scavenged from the garbage the day before..”(Odell,2011). The children still eat it knowing it may be the only food they will have for that day. There are approximately 25 million individuals that get paid less than $14.00 a day. Numerous individuals and families are extremely poor and lack the necessities to survive. When analyzing the population of Mexico, half are in poverty and 10% are classified under extreme poverty. To fall under the category of living in extreme poverty, one lives off $1.25 or less a day in