Ernest Feder, “Notes on the New Penetration of the Agricultures of Developing Countries by Industial Nations,” Boletin de Estudio Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, no. 16 (June 1974), 67-74.

Notes

• 67 – “La decadad pasada ha visto un cambio historico en la estrategia de las naciones industrializadas con respecto a las agriculturas de los paises subdesarrollados. Este cambio consiste en un esfuerzo multifacetal para controlar la produccion de agriculturas en desarrollo, con el fin de acrecentar el fluir de inputs hacia las industrias de los paises industrializados y de ensanchar el comercio mundial de comestibles por un lado, y, por otro, de influir en los asuntos socio-economicos y politicos de los paises subdesarrollados. El primero de estos objectivos se efectua por medio de la compra de tierras (como en el caso de Brasil) o por transferencia de technologia. Cuanto mas intensiva la penetracion tecnologica y financiera de los paises capitalistas, tanto mas alto es el peligro para la legislacion progresista y para los programas agrarios, incluso las reformas agrarias.”
  • The past decade has seen an historic change in the strategy of industrialized nations regarding the agricultures of the underdeveloped countries. This change consists of a multifaceted effort to control the production of agricultures in development, with the end of increasing the flow of inputs toward the industries of the industrialized nations and to widen the commercial world of foodstuffs on the one hand, and, on the other, to influence the socio-economic and political affairs of the underdeveloped countries. The first of these objectives was effectuated through the purchase of land or through the transfer of technology. The more intensive the technological and financial penetration of the capitalist countries, the higher the danger to the progressive legislation and to agrarian programs, including agrarian reform.
• 67-8 – “At the same time, by design or otherwise, this new commercial agricultural sector was set up as a counter-pole to the agrarian reform sector which, with the help of the Mexican government under General Cardenas, had acquired remarkable strength and was beginning to contribute significantly to Mexico’s food output, but it appeared, particularly in the opinion of U.S. observers, to threaten the basis of private entrepreneurship in agriculture. The new commercial sector received enormous support in terms of capital, technical assistance, research and legislation and was able to outflank and weaken the reform sector and, with it, its beneficiaries, the Mexican campesinos.”
• 68 – “Although extremeley successful in terms of producing plentiful supplies of wheat, maize and sorghum, the Green Revolution in Mexico brought about a steady decline in the economic, social and political status of the masses, new concentration of land ownership, and a steadily increasing gap in income, wealth, nutrition, housing, clothing and education between the upper and the lower classes in the agricultural sector.”
• From Lester Brown’s Seeds of Change, published for the Overseas Development Council: “‘Once it becomes profitable to use modern technology, the demand for all kinds of farm inputs increases rapidly. And only agribusiness firms can supply these new inputs efficiently. This means that the multi-national corporation has a vested interest in the agricultural revolution along with the poor countries themselves. Again American experience provides a useful guide. Supplying farmers’ needs can be big business . . . For each acre of the 300 million acres they cultivate, American farmers spend $42 annually on production inputs and services supplied by the non-farm sector . . . Ignoring for the moment the crucial problem of foreign exchange, we can expect a steady rise in expenditures by farmers in the poor countries for the same sort of inputs.’ (p. 59).”
• 69 – And “‘The modernization of agriculture in the poor countries will, of course, provide new competition for American farm products in some instances. But modernization is also the key to export expansion. It is precisely those countries that have recorded outstanding performances in agriculture during the 1960’s that have rapidly increased their imports from the United States.’ (p. 173)”
• “In other words, the eradication of hunger would be excellent business for the U.S. multinational corporations.”

• “It is astounding that the social scientists who have dealt with the problem of dependency have paid so little attention to the new role of agriculture in the interrelations between the industrial nations and the developing countries, and even critics of the Green Revolution have generally failed to conclude that it has all the elements of an imperialist strategy par excellence. In my judgment, however, the Green REvolution is only one element of a general strategy for the penetration of third world agricultures by the industrial nations. And on this point I should like to elaborate a little more.”

• 69n4 – “A notable exception is Harry M. Cleaver, ‘The Green Revolution and Imperialism,’ in The Monthly Review, June 1972.”
• 70 – “Until only a few years ago, the main interest of the industrial nations in agricultural products produced by the third world countries was . . . in plantation crops and in a few industrial crops . . .. The plantations provided the main link between, and have historically symbolized the dependence of the agricultures (and in fact of the economies) of the developing countries on the industrial nations.”
• 71 – “It is very important to realize that the ‘modernization’ strategy of agriculture through the diffusion of technology has preceded the diffusion of the HYV’s of Rockefeller-Ford Foundation fame, but the U.S. has probably gained an important advantage over its competitors by organizing, around the diffusion of the HYV’s, a remarkably efficient and highly aggressive modernization programme in cooperation with the governments of the developing countries in which the free distribution of the valuable new seeds and practically free technical advice were sweet inducements for governments eager to substitute food imports. It is obvious from Brown’s earlier quotations that the Green REvolution is not a seed distribution programme, but a package deal, as the proper utilization of HYV’s requires the almost obligatory use of high capital investments in irrigation facilities and equipment, sophisticated machinery and experienced technical assistance and management . . ..”
• 72 – “Notwithstanding the Green Revolutionaries’ protestations to the contrary, the HYV package is destined for use principally by large-scale commercial producers, not peasant producers. One reason is that the main aim of the Green REvolution is expansion of output at maximum speed. The few large landowners have the resources — land, credit, management, political influence — and are already best endowed to fulfil this requirement.”