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We delivered a study to the United Nations with an estimation of the demand for migrant labour in Mexican agriculture.

The projected demand for agricultural labour in Mexico was achieved through the development of a prospective model and quantitative analysis mandated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations migration agency. This model was developed to explore determinants and areas of opportunity for a temporary migration scheme to formally incorporate migrant workers into Mexican agriculture.

The agricultural sector in Mexico attracts a significant amount of migrant labour and has regional particularities, which is why it is essential for the stakeholders involved to obtain a comprehensive and forward-looking vision of the migration situation. To achieve this, the prospective model was developed incorporating two key elements: collective intelligence and computational modelling. The group of stakeholders' collective intelligence was captured through a workshop supported by the CORESO-Tool (CT), which made it possible to obtain a relational map between agriculture and migration factors in the Mexican context. This workshop allowed us to design and feed the prospective model used for the projections. Both the coordination of the workshop and the design of the model were carried out by the research team comprising CORESO, the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) and the Laboratorio de Políticas Públicas (LNPP) of the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE).

The results obtained with this model have allowed the IOM to engage decision-makers more easily in a joint evaluation process of migration policies in favour of the Mexican agricultural sector. Therefore, the study responds to IOM's general intervention framework, which seeks to support public and private actors to have evidence-based programme and policy evaluation tools at their fingertips. In turn, this collaboration has allowed CORESO to strengthen its ties with partner research centres, and to position itself as a key player in applied research and modelling for public policy purposes to international organisations.