Peasant friendly plant breeding and the early years of the green revolution in Mexico

Agricultural History

Volumn 83, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 384-410

  Harwood, Jonathan ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRICULTURAL WORKER; CEREAL; CROP PRODUCTION; CROP YIELD; FOOD SECURITY; GREEN REVOLUTION; MAIZE; PLANT BREEDING;

AGRICULTURE; ARTICLE; BREEDING; CATERING SERVICE; CEREAL; COMMERCIAL PHENOMENA; CROP; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNOLOGY; FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT; FOOD HANDLING; HEALTH; HISTORY; MEXICO; NON PROFIT ORGANIZATION; POVERTY; RURAL POPULATION; SOCIAL CHANGE;

AGRICULTURE; BREEDING; CEREALS; COMMERCE; CROPS, AGRICULTURAL; ECONOMICS; FOOD SUPPLY; FOOD TECHNOLOGY; FOUNDATIONS; FUND RAISING; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; MEXICO; POVERTY AREAS; RURAL HEALTH; RURAL POPULATION; SOCIAL CHANGE;

MEXICO [NORTH AMERICA]; NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES;

ZEA MAYS;

EID: 70049102582     PISSN: 00021482     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3098/ah.2009.83.3.384     Document Type: Article

References (139)

1. This paper was written in part while I was a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and I am grateful to Hans-Joerg Rheinberger and to Institute librarians for their support. An early draft of the paper was presented at the meeting of the Society for the History of Technology at Washington, DC, 2007. I thank participants at that session, as well as my colleague, Inderjeet Parmar, for critical comments. In Mexico maize yields nearly doubled from the late 1940s to the late 1960s, while wheat production rose eight-fold, but the increase was mainly generated on large irrigated farms. Edwin Wellhausen, "The Agriculture of Mexico," Scientific American 235 (Aug. 1976): 129-50;
2. Barbara Tuchman, "The Green Revolution and the Distribution of Agricultural Income in Mexico," World Development 4 (Jan. 1976): 17-24;
3. E. C. Stakman et al., Campaigns Against Hunger (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 214-15.
4. Niek Koning, The Failure of Agrarian Capitalism: Agrarian Politics in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and the USA, 1846-1919 (New York: Routledge, 1994);
5. Jonathan Harwood, "Europe's Green Revolution: The Rise and Fall of Peasant-Friendly Plant-Breeding, 1890-1945," MS, in possession of author;
6. Willi Boelcke, "Ueber die Sakulare Strukturentwicklung der Klein-und Mittelbauerlichen Landwirtshcaft in Deutschland Wahrend des 19./20. Jahrhunderts," in Entwicklungstendenzen in der Agrargeschichtlichen Lehre und Forschung, 89-98 (Berlin: Institut fur Agrarpolitik, Marktlehre u. Agrarentwick-lung, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, and Fordergesellschaft Albrecht Daniel Thaer, 1995).
7. The farms in question were similar in size to those in the developing world. In Bavaria, 60 percent of the farms around 1900 were less than five hectares (twelve acres) in size, Lud-wig Kiessling, "Die Organisation einer Landessaatgutziichtung in Bayern," Flihlings Land-wirtschaftliche Zeilung 55 (1906): 329-38.
8. In the West Punjab in the 1950s, 79 percent of farms were less than four hectares, Keith Griffin, The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: An Essay on the Green Revolution (London: Macmillan, 1974), 20.
9. In the central highlands of Mexico during the 1970s, where half of Mexico's farmers lived and rural poverty was pronounced, the average amount of arable land per farm was about six hectares Wellhausen, "The Agriculture of Mexico," 136.
10. Jules Billard, "The Revolution in American Agriculture," National Geographic (Feb. 1970): 147-85.
11. According to one account, by the late 1960s Ford Foundation officials had concluded that Mexican peasant agriculture would have to disappear if the country's agriculture were to be fully modernized, John Perkins, Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 114.
12. On large farmers' enthusiasm for new methods, see, Don Paarlberg, "The Land Grant Colleges and the Structure Issue," American Journal of Agricultural Economics 63 (Feb. 1981): 129-34.
13. Deborah Fitzgerald, "Exporting American Agriculture: The Rockefeller Foundation n Mexico, 1943-53," Social Studies of Science 16 (Aug. 1986): 457-83,459;
14. Cynthia Hewitt de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture: Socioeconomic Implications of Technological Change, 1940-1970 (Geneva: UN Research Institute for Social Development, 1976), 20,23;
15. Bruce H. Jennings, Foundations of International Agricultural Research: Science and Politics in Mexican Agriculture (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988), chpt. 3.
16. Doubting its commitment to poverty reduction, Olea-Franco writes that the MAP was "in no way a philanthropic enterprise to end hunger in the world," Adolfo Olea-Franco, "One Century of Higher Agricultural Education and Research in Mexico (185Os-196Os), with a Preliminary Survey on the Same Subjects in the United States" (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2001), 721.
17. Although Cotter's book is a study of Mexican agricultural scientists during the twentieth century rather than an analysis of the MAP, he acknowledges that some of the MAP'S work during the 1940s sought to improve peasant farmer wellbeing, Joseph Cotter, Troubled Harvest: Agronomy and Revolution in Mexico, 1880-2002 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003), 198-99,322.
18. On balance, he takes the view that the, "foundation wanted to push Mexico through the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society... and thus tried to create commercial farmers, not vibrant, autonomous communities of peasant corn growers", 322, 188.
19. In Jennings's discussion of the 1940s, he recognizes that there were initially competing visions as to how the MAP might operate, but he underestimates the extent to which alternative approaches were taken seriously by the program's Advisory Committee as well as foundation officials. Moreover, his argument that the MAP decided to try to increase productivity without regard to social consequences ignores the concern among advisors and officials from the mid-1940s about the need for more attention to developing the extension system. Much the same can be said of Stephen Lewontin's "The Green Revolution and the Politics of Agricultural Development in Mexico since 1940" (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1983).
20. Karin Matchett recognized that the early breeding program was in fact more appropriate for Mexican conditions than was the work being done by Mexico's own breeders, Matchett, "Untold Innovation: Scientific Practice and Corn Improvement in Mexico, 1935-1965" (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2002). Because I am interested in the extent to which the founding vision of the program rested upon earlier European experience, I have drawn primarily upon archival materials that shed light upon the aims and approaches of the foundation during the planning stage. Other historians of the MAP have been concerned with the work that its staff actually did, usually during a later period. Among the existing histories, only Fitzgerald and Matchett have looked closely at the 1940s, and the latter's analysis focuses heavily upon the MAP and Mexican maize-breeding programs from the 1930s to the 1960s rather than upon the general strategy underlying the MAP and its transformation during the early years of the program.
21. Mann Diaries, 1924-1927, Log 10 (Dec. 1924-Jan. 1925) on Germany, Box 42; Mann iaries, 1926-27 and 1940-1942, Log 34 (Dec. 1927) on Finland, Box 43, RG 12.1, Rockefeller Foundation Archives (hereafter RF);
22. Mann to Wickliffe Rose, June 28, 1924, Folder 329;
23. Mann to Rose, Aug. 27,1924, Folder 330, Box 23, Ser. 1.1, International Education Board Archives (hereafter IEB), Rockefeller Archive Center (hereafter RAC). Mann notes the views of Asher Hobson of the International Institute of Agriculture that the rapid growth of cooperatives in Europe was due to the "extreme need" to husband small savings, a point that "possibly [had] greater significance than in the US." C. B. Hutchison, director of agriculture for the IEB for 1926-1928, also visited the principal German stations; see, Hutchison Papers, Special Collections, Shields Library, University of California-Davis.
24. One of these advocates for fundamental research was Hutchison, see, Hutchison to Rose, Feb. 1928, Folder 335; numerous documents in Folder 334, Box 23, Ser. 1.1, IEB, RAC. The same conception of agricultural research is evident in the survey of US agricultural education conducted for the IEB by Whitney Shepardson, see, Shepardson, Agricultural Education in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1929).
25. On two paths toward improvement, see, Mann to Rose, Apr. 17,1925, Folder 331, Box 23, Ser. 1.1, IEB, RAC. In an annual report, the IEB drew a similar distinction between "economic" and "scientific" perspectives in agricultural research. The former developed empirical methods of production and distribution and was local in orientation, while the latter dealt with general principles and was international in scope, see, Annual Report of the International Education Board, 1925-26 (New York: International Education Board, 1926), 18.
26. On crops, see, Randall E. Stross, The Stubborn Earth: American Agriculturalists on Chinese Soil, 1898-1937 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 152,157,201-202, and chpt. 6;
27. On selection and farm size, see, H. H. Love and J. H. Reisner, "The Cornell-Nanking Story," New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell International Agricultural Development Bulletin No. 4 (1964): 11, 34.
28. These two Cornell breeders observed that "in some ways this is the most difficult part of a crop improvement program," 33. The director of the program, Selskar Gunn, was an expert on public health who had been unhappy with the fact that most of the Rockefeller's support for medicine in China (since before World War I) had been directed at the Peking Union Medical College. Although this promoted high standards in medical science, he believed it had too little impact on rural public health. As a result, he called for the China Program to take a "fully integrated" approach to improving educational, economic, and social conditions in rural areas where the vast majority of the population lived.
29. The aim of the program, Gunn argued, was to "coordinate several fragmentary native efforts into a united movement to improve the lot of the Chinese peasant," see, Gunn cited in James C.Thomson, While China Faced West:American Reformers in Nationalist China, 1928-1937 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 149.
30. Annual Report of the General Education Board (New York: General Education Board) for the years 1932-33 through 1938.
31. Annual Report of the General Education Board (New York: General Education Board) for the years 1932-1933 through 1938. Mann may have seen extension as a more important task for the MAP than has been suggested, see
32. Mann may have seen extension as a more important task for the MAP than has been suggested, see, Matchett, "Untold Innovation," 80
33. Annual Report of the General Education Board, 1936-37; Memo, from Warren Weaver, Mar. 8,1946, Folder 11, Box 2, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC. On the establishment of the Advisory Committee (later renamed the Advisory Committee on Agricultural Activities), see, Folder 56, Box 9, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC. This committee grew out of the Agricultural Survey Commission established early in 1941, consisting of Stakman, Mangelsdorf, Bradfield, and Richard Schultes-whose task was to visit Mexico, assess the state of its agriculture, and make recommendations on what a Rockefeller program might be able to achieve, see, Folder 70, Box 11, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC.
34. Advisory Committee for Agricultural Activities, "The World Food Problem, Agriculture and the RF," June 21, 1951, Folder 23, Box 3, Ser. 915, RG 3, RF, RAC.
35. Weaver employed the same argument the following month to persuade Chester Barnard, president of the foundation, of the need for a separate division for agriculture, see, Weaver, "Agriculture and the RF," July 1951, Folder 20, Box 3, Ser. 915, RG 3, RF, RAC.
36. On US-Mexican relations, see, correspondence for 1941, Folder 2, Box 1, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC. Lewontin argues that the foundation's plan for an agricultural aid program was supported by US officials because it fit well with the administration's policy toward cooperation with Latin American states after 1938, Lewontin, "The Green Revolution," chpt. 4.
37. In the 1960s Stakman claimed that the seriousness of this problem had been brought home to the advisors by food riots in 1942 and 1943 and "real distress," Interview with Elvin Stakman, RG 13, RF, RAC. On the Int. Health Division, see, Jennings, Foundations of International Agricultural Research, 46-48;
38. Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 189. This combination of measures aimed at public health as well as agricultural development was also a feature of the foundation's program in China during the 1930s
39. see, Thomson, When China Faced West, chpt. 6.
40. On best practice, see, John Staatz and Carl Eicher, "Agricultural Development Ideas in Historical Perspective," in Agricultural Development in the Third World, ed. Carl Eicher and John Staatz (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 20-21.
41. As the improvement of agriculture and rural life involves not only progress in techniques of crop and animal production but also amelioration of living and health conditions, it seems obvious that the proposed commission [MAP] should be intimately associated with the local office of the International Health Division, thus promoting economy and efficiency," Summary of the Survey Commission's report, Dec. 4, 1941, Folder 70, Box 11.
42. William C. Cobb, "The Historical Background of the Mexican Agricultural Program," 1956, Folder 62, Box 10; minutes of meeting of Mexican Agricultural Commission, June 5,1941, Folder 71, Box 11, Ser. 323, RG 1.1; Weaver to J. D. Rockefeller III, Oct. 11,1946, Folder 20; Stakman, Memo, to President Rusk, Folder 21, Box 3, Ser. 915, RG 3, RF, RAC.
43. According to Cotter, in 1945 the foundation considered a cooperative arrangement between the MAP and IHD, but nutrition never became a major issue for the MAP, Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 189.
44. Following his visit to Mexico in 1945, Mann drew attention to the "urgent need" to develop methods of maintaining soil fertility that would not require expensive commercial fertilizers, Mann, "Observations in Mexico," Aug. 26,1943, Folder 4, Box 1, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC. Members of the Agricultural Advisory Committee were familiar with the nature of peasant agriculture. Stakman claimed that the MAP was not unprepared for the prob lems in Mexico because there had been "a lot of peasant farming in the US when we were young," Elvin Stakman, The Reminiscences of Elvin Stakman (Columbia University: Oral History Research Office, 1971), 945;
45. "Report on the Status of Agriculture in Mexico," Folder 70, Box 11, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC, p. 144.
46. As the MAP'S director recalled, MAP breeders learned that not all improved varieties of beans were welcomed by peasant farmers; acceptance required that beans had the right color. "So we tried to meet this requirement. Sometimes their preferences are bound up with bitter experience, so unless you know that experience, it is better not to try to interfere too abruptly with customs or habits," Interview with J. George Harrar, RG 13, p. 52;
47. RBF to ARM, AJ W, and JAF, excerpt of comments by Carl Sauer on Wallace's proposal, Feb. 10,1941, Folder 2, Box 1, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC. Sauer, a cultural geographer from the University of California-Berkeley, was not the only Latin American specialist who conveyed this message to the foundation at the outset, see, Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 143.
48. During the 1920s Stakman became acquainted withTheodor Roemer. Professor of plant breeding at the University of Halle, Roemer had visited the University of Minnesota in 1925, after which the two men set up a student exchange between their universities, and Stakman was visiting professor at Halle in 1930, Interview with Stakman; Stakman, The Reminiscences of Elvin Stakman. Stakman"s knowledge of the German plant-breeding stations may also have been based on his experience with the IEB's agricultural work from about 1926 when he became an advisor to Hutchison, see, Hutchison to Rose, Mar. 20,1926, Folder 334, Box 23;
49. Shepardson to Hutchison, Aug. 5,1927, Folder 339, Box 24, Ser. 1.1,1EB, RAC.
50. For the focus on maize, see, "Agricultural Conditions and Problems in Mexico," 1941, Folder 2, Box 1, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC. Wheat, unlike maize or beans, was not central to most Mexicans' diet; the demand came from the wealthier urban sector of the population. Moreover the number of farmers who grew wheat was only 2 or 3 percent of the number who grew maize, and wheat farms were larger and better irrigated.
51. Within a few years, the program devoted increasing attention to wheat, much to the annoyance of Sauer, who dismissed it as a food consumed by "the privileged fraction of the population," see, Sauer to Joe [presumably Joseph Willits], Feb. 12,1945, Folder 9, Box 2, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC.
52. Between about 1950 and 1970 the MAP allocated similar levels of research funding to wheat and maize, see, Delbert T. Myren, "The Rockefeller Foundation Program in Corn and Wheat in Mexico," in Subsistence Agriculture and Economic Development, ed. Clifton R.Wharton (London: Cass, 1970), 438-452.
53. This "wheat bias" has been cited by historians-correctly-to illustrate the large farm orientation that the MAP eventually acquired, see, Lewontin, "The Green Revolution," 127.
54. The advisors' support for improved techniques did not entail dismissing all native cultivation practices. In their work on beans, MAP breeders took into account the traditional practice of intercropping beans with maize since they thought it was likely to continue for generations to come, see, Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 188.
55. The quotation is from Summary of the Survey Commission's report, Dec. 4,1941, Folder 70, Box 11, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC. "Agricultural Conditions and Problems in Mexico"; Mangelsdorf to Alfonso Gonzalez Gallardo, Dec. 10, 1943, Folder 6, Box 1; Harrar to Weaver, Jan. 11,1946, Folder 11, Box 2, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC.
56. Matchett, "Untold Innovation";
57. Karin Matchett, "At Odds over Inbreeding: An Abandoned Attempt at Mexico/United States Collaboration to 'Improve' Mexican Corn, 1940-1950," Journal of the History of Biology 39 (July 2006): 345-372.
58. The quotation is from "Agricultural Conditions and Problems in Mexico." Mangelsdorf to Gallardo, Dec. 10, 1943;
59. Interview with Paul Mangelsdorf, RG 13, RF, RAC, p. 69.
60. Mangelsdorf envisioned a two-track breeding program in which the MAP should develop US-style hybrids since he believed that large Mexican farms could make good use of them.To argue that a high-input model suited to commercial farming "was ultimately the only ... plausible model to which these scientists could refer" (Fitzgerald, "Exporting American Agriculture," 463), thus fails to recognize the extent to which MAP staff were sensitive to the needs of Mexican peasant farmers.
61. Similarly, Cotter's claim that "the MAP did not create seeds to solve the problems of peasant farmers" (Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 188) is not true, at least for the 1940s.
62. Although Lewontin recognizes that the original emphasis of the maize-breeding program was on open-pollinated varieties, he misses the significance of this fact, Lewontin, "The Green Revolution," 157-58.
63. In the double-cross hybrid method, the breeder selects four inbred lines that have been derived from five or six generations of inbreeding. Lines A and B are then crossed with each other, as are lines C and D, and finally the AB hybrid is crossed with the CD hybrid in order to produce the desired variety. Landraces are mixed varieties (consisting of many distinct subtypes) that have been traditionally planted in a particular locality over many generations and are thus well adapted to it.
64. On synthetic varieties, see, Matchett, "At Odds over Inbreeding," 351, 366;
65. Matchett, "Untold Innovation," chpt. 2 and 163.
66. The potential value of synthetic varieties had been proposed a few years earlier for regions "where hybrid corn may not be economically feasible," see, Merle Jenkins, "The Segregation of Genes Affecting Yield of Grain in Maize," Journal of the American Society of Agronomy 32 (Jan. 1940): 55-63.
67. de Alcantara attributes advocacy for synthetics primarily to Mexican maize breeders of the late 1940s, evidently unaware that the MAP had embarked on such a breeding program several years earlier, de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture, 37-38. The quotation is from Progress Report, Nov. 1, 1944, Folder 40, Box 6, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC, p. 5.
68. On the need for speed, see, Interview with Mangelsdorf, p. 69.
69. On the need for speed, see, Interview with Mangelsdorf, p. 69. That MAP breeders placed a higher priority on speed in developing new varieties than did their Mexican counterparts is clear from Matchett, "Untold Innovation," chpt. 6.
70. On the yield of synthetic varieties, see, Stakman, Reminiscences of Elvin C. Stakman, 1071.
71. "Experience," Mann wrote, "justifies confidence that considerable improvement in economic and living conditions can be expected from such [extension] methods. ... They constitute the most direct approach to the relatively early introduction of changes," Memo, from Mann, Feb. 20,1941, Folder 70, Box 11, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC.
72. For the Survey Commission's view in 1941, see, "Agricultural Conditions and Problems in Mexico." The other key issues cited by Bradfield were education and cooperative production and marketing, see, Draft Annual Report for 1943, Folder 38, Box 6, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC.
73. The quotation is from Bradfield, "Report of Trip to Mexico, August 7-15,1945," Folder 10, Box 2, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC.
74. On the change of heart in 1946, see, Mangelsdorf, "Report on a Trip to Mexico for the RF, Feb.-Mar. 1946," Folder 61, Box 10, Ser. 323, RG 1.2, RF, RAC.
75. In 1947 Mangelsdorf struck the same note. The technical progress achieved in four years had been amazing, but "whether these achievements can now be translated into... immediate improvement of Mexican agriculture," only time would tell, see, Mangelsdorf, "Report on a Trip to Mexico," Feb. 1947, Folder 61, Box 10, Ser. 323, RG 1.2, RF, RAC, p. 9.
76. Among items suggested for discussion at the October 1946 meeting of the Advisory Committee, Stakman proposed what the foundation might do to compensate for the weakness of the extension system in Mexico. Should the foundation take responsibility for distributing seed of new varieties, he asked? Ideally, the Mexican government should do this, but there were practical difficulties. And if the foundation did decide to do this, the method of distribution might need to be different for ejidos and for landowners, Stakman to Mann, Sept. 5,1946, Folder 57, Box 9, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC.
77. Interview with Bradfield, RG 13, RF, RAC.
78. On Mann and Weaver's visit, see, "Topical Diary of Visit to Mexican Agricultural Program; WW and ARM, Sept. 12 to Oct. 6, 1946; On Mann and Weaver's visit, see, "Topical Diary of Visit to Mexican Agricultural Program; WW and ARM, Sept. 12 to Oct. 6, 1946; JDR 3rd and W1M Sept. 28 to Oct. 6, 1946, " Folder 12;
79. Visit to Mexican Agricultural Program, ARM and WW, Sept. 12-Oct. 6, 1946;
80. Summary Conclusions," Folder 13, Box 2, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC. In a memo, apparently from Weaver, the items to be discussed with Harrar included "Is there a Mexican who could be trained in the US to head up the extension work?," "How much have Mexicans themselves developed in knowledge, organization and personnel which could be used in the extension service?" and "To what extent have Mexican scientists collaborated with RF personnel? Are they sharing in the RF [projects]?" "For Discussion with Harrar," Oct. 28,1946, Folder 13, Box 2, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC.
81. On Harrar's agreement, see, "Topical Diary of Visit to Mexican Agricultural Program"; minutes of meeting of Advisory Committee for Mexican Agriculture, Oct. 17,1946, Folder 67, Box 10;
82. "Report on the Mexican Agricultural Program prepared by JGH," Nov. 14,1946, Folder 13, Box 2, Ser. 323, RG 1.1,RF,RAC.
83. Fitzgerald, "Exporting American Agriculture," 471-72;
84. Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 197-198
85. On collaboration with the ministry, see, Minutes of Nov. 1948 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Agriculture, Folder 59, Box 9, Ser. 323, RG 1.1;
86. "Report on Trip to Mexico, Aug.-Sept. 1953 and Oct. 1953, by Richard Bradfield," Folder 61, Box 10, Ser. 323, RG 1.2, RF, RAC.
87. Among the advisors, Bradfield was most aware of the ways in which technical solutions had to be adapted to farmers' circumstances as well as of the role that extension and other non-research measures could play in agricultural development.This broader vision was again evident from the 1960s when, as head of the Multiple-Cropping Systems Division at the International Rice Research Institute, he was repeatedly critical of the institute's single-minded focus upon producing high-yielding rice varieties dependent upon irrigation. This ignored the needs of two-thirds of Asian rice farmers, he argued, whose land was neither irrigated nor suited to rice monoculture, see, Robert S. Anderson et al., Rice Science and Development Politics: Research Strategies and IRRl's Technologies Confront Asian Diversity (1950-1980) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 42-46, 86-88.
88. On Wellhausen's career, see, "Wellhausen," American Men & Women of Science, T-Z, 15'h ed., Book XIII (New York: Bowker, 1982).
89. On water use, see, de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture, 52,309. The second quotation is from Interview with Wellhausen, RG 13, RF, RAC, p. 56.
90. The quotation is from Fitzgerald, "Exporting American Agriculture," 471, 467;
91. de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture, 42-43.
92. Matchett's view that the Advisory Committee's decision in 1941 to take a "top-down" approach was a "defining moment at which any immediate plan for an extension program lost most of its ground to a program built primarily around research" (Matchett, "Untold Innovation," 81,84) misses the lack of initial consensus among advisors, as well as the growing concern with it among both advisors and officers by the mid-1940s.
93. Even by the mid-1950s, when the MAP had eighteen foundation scientists and over one hundred Mexican scientists, the program was not large enough to provide an extension service, see, de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture, 21,86.
94. What the MAP might have attempted was a manageable pilot program aimed at peasant farmers in one region. If well done, this might have stimulated farmer interest in the MAP's work and demonstrated to the Ministry how the new extension service should be designed. Whether this possibility was conceived or attempted, I do not know.
95. The first quotation is from "Visit to Mexican Agricultural Program, ARM and WW, Sept. 12-Oct. 6,1946;
96. Summary Conclusions." Sauer voiced concern in 1945 about what he saw as pressure to introduce "American methods unsuited to the country. The same thing is true all over Latin America, where Argentina is the only country that was designed to fit into the North Atlantic pattern of agriculture. Are these proper questions for social science? I think they are," Sauer to Joe, Feb. 12,1945. In 1946 Myers recommended adding an agricultural economist, not only to the MAP staff but also to the Advisory Committee, see, "Topical Diary of Visit to Mexican Agricultural Program."
97. According to Jennings, in 1949 Myers urged Harrar to offer an institutional home to a sociologist who was investigating the extension process in Mexico, Jennings, Foundations of International Agricultural Research, 122-23. The second quotation is from Interview with Myers, RG 13, RF, RAC, p. 56,82.
98. Although impressed with the MAP's technical achievements, Myers's disappointment with what he saw as the program's "one-sided" character prompted him to set up a small foundation focused on the economic and social dimensions of development: the Agricultural Development Council.The third quotation is from Myers to Barnard, Aug. 27,1951; Weaver to the Advisory Committee on Agricultural Activities, Oct. 30, 1951, Folder 20, Box 3, Ser. 915, RG 3, RF, RAC.
99. Two years earlier the trustee, John S. Dickey, had called upon the foundation to add a social scientist to the MAP, see, Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 205.
100. For Stakman's recommendation, see, Stakman, memo, to President Rusk and CBF to DR, Jan. 12,1954, Folder 21, Box 3, Ser. 915, RG 3, RF, RAC.That economics came so late to the MAP is cited by historians as evidence of the program's narrow conception of development; what nearly all of them have missed (the exception being Jennings) is the strength of the opposing view among advisors and officers.
101. "Topical Diary of Visit to Mexican Agricultural Program." Three years later Harrar again declined to take up Myers's suggestion that the MAP take seriously the social dimen sions of agricultural development, see, Jennings, Foundations of International Agricultural Research, 123.
102. On Harrar's expanded program and the ministry's reaction, see, Memo, Mar. 1946, Folder 11, Box 2, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC.
103. Despite its original peasant friendly intentions, the MAP was slow to get started with research on beans, beginning its work in 1949, and it was 1954 before expenditure on beans reached one-half of that spent on wheat, see, de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture, 25.
104. The second quotation is from Mangelsdorf, "Report on a Trip to Mexico," 1943, Folder 61, Box 10, Ser. 323, RG 1.2, RF, RAC,p. 4
105. On limes, etc., see, Stakman, Reminiscences ofElvin C. Stakman, 976.
106. In 1949 the president of the foundation appears to have overruled Weaver in favor of giving Harrar such operational freedom, see, Jennings, Foundations of International Agricultural Research, 120.
107. The first quotation is from Interview with Harrar, RG 13, RF, RAC, p.183. Well-hausen was similarly disappointed. The gains in yield through improved fertilization practices were largely confined to "better farmers." Only a few ejidos managed to do this, and there was a risk of rural riots among poor farmers unless the government provided more assistance for them via extension, Interview with Wellhausen, p. 169.
108. The first quotation is from Interview with Harrar, RG 13, RF, RAC, p. 183. Well-hausen was similarly disappointed. The gains in yield through improved fertilization practices were largely confined to "better farmers." Only a few ejidos managed to do this, and there was a risk of rural riots among poor farmers unless the government provided more assistance for them via extension, Interview with Wellhausen, p. 169. Lewontin finds it "remarkable" and "ironic" that Stakman et al. should have been so critical of the National Corn Commission since in his view "the Foundation ... had come to Mexico with the intention of cooperating with just these groups [large farmers]," Lewontin, "Green Revolution," 175,165
109. But this is remarkable only if one has missed the fact that the original conception of the MAP was far more peasant friendly than has yet been recognized. On Stakman's reluctant conclusion, see, Stakman to Mann, Sept. 5, 1946, Folder 57, Box 9; minutes of meeting of Advisory Committee for Mexican Agriculture, Oct. 17,1946, Folder 67, Box 10;
110. Stakman to Weaver, May 16,1947, Folder 15, Box 2, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC. During a site visit in 1947, Mangelsdorf learned that the Corn Commission had been set up by a friend of the new president and two of this friend's associates. Opinion was divided among Mexican agricultural scientists on whether or not these three would appropriate the commission's funding but do nothing, Mangelsdorf, "Report on a Trip to Mexico." But the Corn Commission's vulnerability to corruption was not the only problem with the state distribution system. According to Matchett, the commission possessed inadequate facilities for multiplying the seed provided to it by the breeders, and its staff did not take sufficient care to maintain seed quality, Matchett, "Untold Innovation," 218.
111. Moreover, the commission favored hybrid maize varieties and made little effort to multiply and distribute the open-pollinated varieties developed by the MAP, see, Lewontin ,"Green revolution," 166-74.
112. Finally, in addition to the president's Corn Commission, the Ministry chose to set up its own rival organization-the National Commission for the Increase and Distribution of Improved Seeds-which sought to control the distribution of MAP seed. The result, as Har-rar put it, was that "progress was not as rapid as it might have been," Interview with Harrar, p. 96; Interview with Wellhausen, p. 102-104.
113. On the chaotic history of the two corn commissions, see, Fitzgerald, "Exporting American Agriculture," 466-67;
114. de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture, 74-75.
115. The quotations are from de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture, 311,307;
116. Lewontin, "Green Revolution" 114-120.
117. Possibly, extension was not the only arena in which MAP proposals fell upon deaf ears. In 1948, for example, the Advisory Committee agreed that the development of local crop improvement associations should be "cautiously encouraged," see, Minutes of Nov. 1948 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Agriculture, Folder 59, Box 9, Ser. 323, RG 1.1, RF, RAC. What happened to this recommendation is not clear, but according to de Alcantara, from the 1940s the formation of such cooperatives among large landowners was common, while among peasants in receipt of government credit it was illegal, de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture, 311-12, 51. Such associations had also been promoted early in the twentieth century by staff at the Bavarian plant-breeding station who saw them as a way to facilitate the introduction of new cultivation practices on small farms.
118. On resistance to new varieties, see, Matchett, "At Odds over Inbreeding";
119. Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 190.
120. Mangelsdorf had the impression that neither of the two most important Mexican maize-breeding groups were prepared to coordinate their work with that of the MAP, Mangelsdorf, "Report on a Trip to Mexico." On Mexican aversion to field work, see, Interview with Harrar, p. 36
121. Olea-Franco, "One Century of Higher Agricultural Education and Research in Mexico," chpt. 6;
122. Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 192-193
123. In his early maize-breeding work,Wellhausen found it easier to cooperate with farmers than with experiment stations whose staff struck him as jealous and overly concerned with their personal reputations, Interview with Wellhausen. Cotter judges Mexican agricultural scientists to have been more concerned with enhancing their professional status than aiding the peasantry, Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 156-57,203-204,324-326
124. One consequence was that in the 1930s Mexican experiment stations were giving more attention to export crops than to maize, see, Matchett, " At odds over inbreeding" 353.
125. That the foundation was cautious about development programs that might be seen by the host country as controversial is evident from the mid-1930s when an official familiar with Mexican conditions recommended to the foundation's president that although educa tion was a delicate issue, agriculture was relatively uncontroversial, see, Lewontin, "Green Revolution," 91-92. Weaver seemed to have absorbed this message as he remarked that assisting countries with elementary education was "obviously hot politically," Weaver to Rockefeller, Oct. 11,1946, Folder 20, Box 3, Ser. 915, RG 3, RF, RAC.
126. On land reform, see, Mann, "Observations in Mexico";
127. Cotter, Troubled Harvest, 189
128. The first quotation is from Interview with Myers, p. 86.
129. On suspicion of American motives, see, Interview with Harrar, p. 46;
130. Interview with Stakman, p. 211
131. The second quotation is from Stakman, Reminiscences ofElvin C. Stakman, 974.
132. On Wellhausen's view in 1947, see, Cotter, Troubled harvest, 196.
133. The first quota tion is from Bradfield to Agricultural Advisory Committee, June 15,1951, Folder 20, Box 3, Ser. 915, RG 3, RF, RAC. The second quotation is from Interview with Wellhausen, p. 56.
134. A decade later he noted that there was still little effort devoted to the development of drought-tolerant varieties and that this task would be harder than the kinds of breeding that had been undertaken during the 1940s and 1950s, see, Wellhausen, "The Agriculture of Mexico," 148-150;
135. Lewontin, "Green revolution," chpt. 6.
136. On extension and wheat growers, see, Dana Dalrymple and William I. Jones, "Evaluating the 'Green Revolution,'" MS. presented at American Association for Advancement of Science and Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Technologia, Mexico City, 1973, in possession of author, pp. 16, 26;
137. Myren, "The Rockefeller Foundation Program." The third quotation is from Interview with Myers, p. 67.
138. Stakman et al., Campaigns Against Hunger, 214.
139. According to one source, in 1960 over 80 percent of Mexican farmers' families were living at a subsistence level or worse, see, de Alcantara, Modernizing Mexican Agriculture, 310. The quotation is from Interview with Mangelsdorf, p. 110.