Troubled Harvest: Agronomy and Revolution in Mexico, 1880-2002 by Joseph Cotter is on a crucially important topic and, unfortunately, it's not a very well-written book. The author did absolutely extensive research and succeeds in providing details I have not found anywhere else. However, my major complaint is that much of the book is written as strings of disjointed facts of minute examples (such as the number of Mexican agronomists who graduated in a given year). Here's an example of what I mean by that:
Green Revolution technologies had their greatest impact in the northwestern irrigation districts, but by 1950 the Corn Commission had promoted hybrids in 9 states, and the MAP had conducted experiments in 19 and distributed new seed in 22 and over 100 kilograms of it in 10. By 1949 the MAP conducted corn research at Chapingo, Celaya, Guadalajara, and Morelos; worked on hybrids for the tropics; and tested wheat in Chapingo, Sonora, and La Laguna. Responding to commercial farmers and other interests, the MAP studied seed potatoes, safflower, an African oilseed, insect pests of tomatoes, potato diseases, soybeans, and sorghum. - p. 194
MAP stands for Mexican Agricultural Program, which is the name of the Rockefeller Foundation project in Mexico that was the start of what later became known as the Green Revolution. The author also constantly brings up names of individuals, often by their last names only, without explaining who they are.
To be fair, the author did all the research and most of the writing and then dropped dead at the age of 46 just before the book was completed. Someone else had to finish it for him. And if that isn't enough, the footnotes are written in a frustrating format, in which several pieces of information are grouped together into one footnote which lists several sources. Since many of the sources are at the Rockefeller Archives and thus impossible to get unless you go to New York, it's very difficult to determine which fact or quote comes from which source.
The book is full of useful nuggets of information, certainly worth reading, but frustrating. A summary of the first part of the book follows below. |
| The first several chapters cover Mexican agriculture prior to the Green Revolution. For my purposes this is interesting and important in a broad sense, but the specifics are much less important. My apologies for skimming over this part of history and then focusing on 1940 and later.
Mexico was ruled by Porfirio Diaz from 1876 until 1911, with few brief exceptions. During his rule, Mexico's elite looked to France for culture and science, and agronomists were no exception. Mexican agronomists during this time studied scientific agriculture, which was popular in France, and tried to provide advice and gain employment by the owners of haciendas (hacendados). However, the hacendados were not interested in the agronomists help.
The Mexican Revolution, which threw Diaz from power, began in 1910. There were multiple factions in the revolution, including one of peasants (largely from the south) led by Emiliano Zapata (the namesake of the modern day Zapatistas). Venustiano Carranza's troops assassinated Zapata, and Carranza co-opted his agenda by giving land to some peasants. Carranza was overthrown by his former ally, Alvaro Obregon, in 1920. Obregon and his ally Plutarco Elías Calles, both from the northern state of Sonora, were each presidents of Mexico (Obregon from 1920-24 and Calles from 1924-28, although he continued to rule until 1935). Note that Obregon and Calles were Northerners, but Zapata and his followers were Southerners.
Those in favor of agrarian reform won Article 7 in the new constitution, which established the ejido, or collective farm. Both Obregon and Calles gave away some land to peasants, but it was the following president, Lazaro Cardenas, who did the most in terms of breaking up haciendas and distributing land to peasants in the form of ejidos.
During these years (roughly 1910-1940), the agronomists threw their support to the government and the agraristas (those in favor of agrarian reform & land redistribution), hoping that they could establish their credibility by allying themselves with those in power. Furthermore, they had no love for the hacendados, who had rejected them. The government during this time was run by men from Mexico's northern states, near the United States, and they admired U.S. agriculture. Now the U.S. was more influential than France on Mexican agriculture, although Mexican agronomists continued to look to other countries (even the Soviet Union) for agricultural science and technology.
What is important to me from these parts of the book is that it was not the U.S. during the Green Revolution that introduced the idea of industrial agriculture to Mexico. Mexican agronomists had already taken to that idea since the 1800's, and both the political right and left after the revolution were in favor of industrial agriculture. Even Cardenas, who gave land to so many peasants, was for industrial agriculture. During these years, Mexico's efforts to introduce industrialized agriculture were often fragmented and disorganized, but it's important to recognize that they existed.
Whether due to the disorganization, lack of sufficient funding, or lack of expertise (which often meant that agronomists introduced seed varieties from other countries that weren't suited to Mexico's climate, and those varieties did not succeed in Mexico), for whatever reason, industrial agriculture was not yet adopted by the majority of Mexicans during this time period.
Also important is that the agronomists, who were mostly from upper and middle class families, disdained the peasants who farmed the land. The government and agronomists led campaigns to train peasants in scientific agriculture, and this campaign went hand in hand with an anti-clerical campaign. While trying to get the peasants to abandon Catholicism, they also tried to get the peasants to abandon traditional agricultural practices in favor of "scientific" ones. They had little success here, which reinforced negative stereotypes about the peasants among the agronomists.
Once the Green Revolution began, little changed. That is to say, there was no change in direction, but there was a change in the number of people and amount of money devoted to promoting industrialized agriculture and the development of hybrid seed varieties. I found this quote significant:
Mexican and U.S. scientists looked for maize for de temporal [rainfed] agriculture and developed open-pollinated strains that could be used for seed, but they agreed that corn created by scientists was superior to the campesinos' traditional varieties... the MAP's long-term objective was to develop hybrid corn and wheat. Mangelsdorf knew that many campesinos intercropped corn and beans, and the MAP's scientists too this "ancient custom" into account when they began working on beans, believing that "it was likely to persist for generations to come," but they also said that it lowered yield of both crops. Bean research targeted commercial growers who monocropped and used insecticides. The MAP did not create seeds to solve the problems of peasant farmers. - p. 188
There are also several quotes that show Elvin C. Stakman, a senior advisor at the Rockefeller Foundation, to be a total schmuck. Por ejemplo:
In 1970 Stakman, who admired paternalistic hacendados who cared for their peons, said that "from a national standpoint it would have been better if the food production had been in the hands of the more intelligent people and the larger owners who could operate on a bigger scale. ... But the Mexicans preferred the poverty and the freedom to operate a piece of land themselves." - p. 188-189
The Rockefeller Foundation briefly worked on improving the nutritional quality of the seed varieties they produced... but did not really pursue it.
They [MAP's scientists] admitted that Mexican corn was high in protein but said that this was irrelevant because people obtained it from the beans. In 1946, to address the ENA's and the foundation's goal of improving campesinos' diet, Harrar added vegetable cultivation and breeding to the MAP's project list. In 1949 Wellhausen tried to get an ENA professor into the University of California, Davis, to improve his courses on the subject. In 1950 the MAP encouraged ENA field hands to grow vegetable gardens. To put more protein on the campesinos' dinner table, Harrar wanted to promote home fish production, and in 1949 Herbert S. Jackson built several demonstration ponds for the MAP. The foundation again considered adding nutritional concerns to the MAP's plant-breeding program and gave samples of new corns and wheats to the National Institute of Nutrition, but in 1948 Harrar was angry when data indicating that some hybrids were low in protein were leaked to the press. Weaver told him to "keep in touch with developments" because "better nutrition for the Mexican people" was an "important ultimate objective," but by 1950 no program existed, even though the National Institute of Nutrition wanted to study beans. - p. 195
This one is perhaps my favorite quote of all:
Torres claims that the MAP was committed to agrochemicals and in the 1940s mainstream scientists criticized the "muck and mystery" school of farming, the "mystical belief that nothing must be used in agriculture that was not supplied by nature," but scientists still tested green manure crops at the ENA, in the Yaqui Valley, La Laguna, and the Bajio, and one of their first publications explained how to grow Hubam clover. Bradfield believed in chemical fertilizers, but he also stressed the importance of organic methods. The foundation urged the SAF to devote more effort to this program, claiming that central Mexico's climate and soils often made chemical fertilizers inefficient, especially on de temporal [rainfed] corn, and also because they were too expensive for most Mexican farmers. In 1949 the foundation gave the green manure crop program a high priority. - p. 198-199
Muck and mystery. Not so far off from how conventional ag sees organics here in the U.S. today.
Also interesting is this tidbit:
De la Loma admitted that hybrid corn needed inputs and irrigation to which few farmers had access, and Fabila recognized that it might drive those who could not use it off the land, but neither criticized the MAP's research. - p. 203-204
I assume these are each Mexicans. Here they are questioning the overall socio-economic impact of the Green Revolution on Mexican society but not questioning the quality of the science. That was precisely Rockefeller Foundation's goal. In fact, it was even noted at one point:
In 1949, John S. Dickey (a Rockefeller trustee) "accurately prdicted the economic, social, and political changes that MAP's technologies produced." (p. 204) "To avoid soiling the foundation's image in a way that might "limit the prospects for extending the [MAP] to other Third World nations," he wanted to end the project before his predictions were realized but also urged the officers to send a social scientist to study "emerging economic and social problems" and to use "as much wisdom as possible ... [in] any new projects of this sorts in foreign countries." "In 1949... to address his concerns, the foundation sent agricultural economist Herrel de Graff, who believed that increased production would alleviate Third World hunger, to work with the SAF [Mexican Ministry of Ag]." (p. 205)
What's valuable about this book is that, in its disjointed and anecdotal way, it shows USDA and US government involvement in Mexico prior to and during the Green Revolution:
In 1946 the USDA sent three scientists to seven Latin American countries, including Mexico, to evaluate agricultural assistance, and they found that these projects were received favorably. The Commerce Department studied Mexico's insecticide market and concluded that the government's programs provided an excellent opportunity for U.S. manufacturers. p. 205
The U.S. role gets tied in with the Marshall Plan very quickly after World War II, but initially Latin America was not a focus.
In 1947... George C. Marshall declared that the United States would devote most foreign aid to "countries where conditions are so unstable that proper safeguards against ideological coercion have weakened." p. 206
"The State Department saw Latin America as a safe region and worried more about Communism in Europe and then Asia." The US sent food aid to Mexico in 1946 but decided after that Mexico was on its own "The USDA did not withdraw completely from Mexico but focused on prewar agendas like protecting U.S. farmers and promoting complementary crops." p. 206
In 1948, the US passed Public Law 402 authorizing use of government funds for "a world-wide program of scientific and technical exchange." Around then, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture "Charles F. Brannan told Congress that agricultural assistance programs in Latin America raised standards of living, which created buyers for U.S. manufactured goods." - p 207 Cotter also notes that a tractor company (Ferguson Tractors) got the Rockefeller Foundation to set up a course at Mexico's National School of Agriculture on how to use their tractors. (p. 207)
Cotter quotes Stakman in 1949 saying:
We are in the midst of an agricultural revolution as a result of which the surface of the earth is being stretched to make possible a more abundant life for an increased population. Science is providing an answer to the gloomy Malthusian prophets of doom who predict that the world's population is growing too large for the earth to support it. - p 209
Doesn't that sound remarkably similar to what advocates of a Second Green Revolution are saying today?
By 1950, the Rockefeller Foundation saw the Green Revolution as a tool to contain Communist expansion (p. 209) |
