With this issue, the Revista Textual is celebrating the start of the bilingual publication of its articles, in order to give our publication greater diffusion and visibility. We inform you that from this issue forward the journal will appear in mid-semester, since the intention is that it be published at the beginning of the period and not at the end as it was previously. Likewise, we inform you that we have changed our image, making a typographic selection that facilitates readability and suits both print and digital media; moreover, some modifications have been made in the layout that gives the journal a new personality that enhances the content through editorial design.

Regarding the content of this issue, No. 71, we have six articles, the majority of which were written by professors at our university, since one of the tasks of Institutional Journals is to disseminate research carried out by in-house professors, but in the following issues we will try to ensure that most of the articles are from other institutions.

In the “Economics and public policies” section, we have three articles, including two which address a similar topic, which is illicit crops in Mexico. The first one is from two colleagues attached to CIESTAAM at UACh, Eugenio Santacruz and Víctor Palacio, who address the problem of forest fires and their connection with illicit crops, making a statistical analysis of the relationship between forest fires and the growth in areas used to cultivate narcotics, which shows that there is a direct link between the phenomena analyzed. The second is from a researcher at the Colegio de México, Pierre Gaussens, who analyzes the cultivation of opium poppy in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, which is one of the most important gum opium producing areas in the world; the focus of the article is more from a critical political perspective to observe the historical relationships between drug trafficking and the procedures implemented by the Mexican State to “combat drug trafficking” and the role of the army to eradicate illicit crops, which has not been achieved due to a number of factors analyzed in the article.

The third article is a critical review by Marisel Lemos, Julio Baca and Venancio Cuevas of the Universidad del Cauca, Colombia, on poverty and food insecurity in the Mexican countryside, analyzed within the framework of public policy. The policy that has been followed in Mexico is the one that prevails at the international level of seeking food security, through the fight against poverty and food insecurity that affects millions of people. It is concluded that policies in Mexico have focused on social policies to fight poverty and, nevertheless, this problem has not been reversed. Finally, a knowledge dialogue is proposed between food security and sovereignty approaches, which should contribute to finding alternatives to overcome poverty and food insecurity through structural changes in the Mexican agri-food system.

In the “Social movements and rural culture” section, we have an article by Juan José Rojas, professor in the Department of Rural Sociology, and Inés Rojas, a graduate from the doctoral program in Higher Agricultural Education, about the agricultural cooperatives that existed in the National Irrigation Systems in Mexico. The Mexican federal government promoted agricultural cooperatives as an ideal form of social organization within these systems in order to distribute the land in irrigated areas and modernize agriculture. For this, the State adapted the legislation to grant legal personality to the cooperative associations. However, the full consolidation of these experiences could not be achieved due to the lack of government stimulus, since it did not give continuity after the decade from 1926 to 1936.

In the “Education” section we have two articles that specifically relate to the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo. The first is by Artemio Rosas and Liberio Victorino, both professors at UACh, who deal with tutoring within the academic formation of the students. This article mentions the results of research conducted on UACh students about academic tutorials, where closed and open “Likert” questions were made to 580 students. The results indicate that the tutoring at UACh has not yet been consolidated. Students accept that their parents be informed about their educational and personal process, in order to decrease academic lagging behind, academic failure and low efficiency. They also suggest counseling support, tutoring and psychological support.

The last article is by Professors Héctor Rueda and María Joaquina Sánchez, both UACh professors, who ask a question: Can the UACh Agricultural High School be transformed into a relevant study program for the 21st century? To answer it, the authors did qualitative, exploratory, documentary, reflective and proactive research. Two periods were analyzed, one the year 1995, in which the curriculum of the Agricultural High School was updated, and the current situation in 2017. It was found that the academic program does not include essential aspects in the Higher Education studies, such as environmental education, gender equity and the formation of values. It is recommended to incorporate curricular flexibility, as well as the recommendations of UNESCO, for the training of life skills with a humanist approach, as part of the comprehensive training at this level of education.

We hope that the changes that our journal has made are for the better and that they allow us to advance in its consolidation in the future, since the competition requires us to be at the international level, above all, by publishing our articles in the English language, which has become the universal language.