Dissertation Research: Corn Improvement: Scientific Agriculture in Mexico, 1935-1969

University Of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis MN

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation research project explores the relationship between science and agriculture in a crosscultural setting, comparing and problematizing the assumptions and goals of agricultural scientists from Mexico and the United States. It examines the extent to which science has a standardizing influence on international agricultural practices and crops. The focus of this dissertation is Mexican agricultural research on corn between 1935 - 1969, a period which spans the so-called Green Revolution. During this period the Mexican agricultural research community declared scientific agriculture to be the solution to rural poverty and low agricultural production among subsistence farmers in the land reform sector. Little attention has been paid to how various groups of scientists adapted their research to achieve their different visions of a self sufficient and modern Mexico. Most scholarship and popular commentaries on the Green Revolution contribute to one of two theses. One thesis states that United States agricultural assistance programs inappropriately imposed foreign research and plant varieties on recipient nations. The alternative thesis argues that the advances in agricultural science that were brought to recipient nations, such as high yielding wheat, provided the necessary solution to food problems. This dissertation research contributes to our understanding of the international transfer of agricultural knowledge in three ways: 1) It follows the research and policies of the national agricultural science community at individual and institutional levels, 2) It traces the changes in scientific methodologies and definitions of agricultural science, and 3) It analyzes attempts to develop a scientific agriculture in Mexico and the resulting standardization or diversification of agriculture. This careful study of the research methodologies and the social goals of Mexican and United States agricultural scientists will reveal the changing role that science actually played in attempting to achieve Mexicans' national economic, social, and political goals. It will reveal how Mexican and United States scientists negotiated conflicting visions for Mexico's agricultural welfare. The researcher intends to demonstrate that the role of science in agricultural improvement was not strictly one of standardization; rather, the development of scientific agriculture was historically and geographically situated. Through a variety of motivations, agricultural scientists have contributed to the maintenance of genetic and cultural diversity. Through scientists' choices of the disciplines and methodologies utilized crop research, scientific agriculture has served a range of social and economic goals, from standardization to the conservation of diversity.