Technology Transfer and Agricultural Development Author(s): V. W. Ruttan and Yujiro Hayami Source: Technology and Culture, Vol. 14, No. 2, Part 1 (Apr., 1973), pp. 119-151 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of Technology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3102398 Accessed: 26-03-2015 16:06 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3102398?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Johns Hopkins University Press and Society for the History of Technology are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Technology and Culture. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Thu, 26 Mar 2015 16:06:08 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Technology Transfer and Agricultural Development V. W. RUTTAN AND YUJIRO HAYAMI I. Introduction The "technology factor," in either its embodied or disembodied form, is increasingly recognized as a major source of differences in productivity and welfare over time and among nations.' Yet techni- cal change is one of the more difficult products for a country in the early stages of economic development to produce. In agriculture the initial success of the "green revolution" has resulted in renewed interest in the economic and institutional considerations involved in international technology transfer.2 The international diffusion of agricultural technology is not new. The classical studies by Sauer and Vavilov and the more recent cytogenetic studies of plant origins indicate that the international and intercontinental diffusion of cultivated plants, domestic animals, DR. RUTTAN is a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Econom- ics and Department of Economics, and Director of the Economic Development Center at the University of Minnesota. DR. HAYAMIis a professor in the Faculty of Economics at Tokyo Metropolitan University. This article is Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station Scientific Journal Paper Series no. 8051. The research on which this paper is based was supported by grants to the University of Minnesota Economic Development Center and Agricultural Experiment Station from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. It was presented at the Conference on Agriculture and Economic Development, Japan Economic Research Center, Tokyo, September 6-10, 1971. The paper draws exten- sively on the book by Yujiro Hayami and Vernon W. Ruttan, Agricultural Development: An International Perspective (Baltimore, 1971). The authors are indebted to Robert Evenson, Dana Dalyrmple, and Philip Raup for comments on earlier drafts of the material presented in this paper. 1Yujiro Hayami and V. W. Ruttan, "Agricultural Productivity Differences among Countries," AmericanEconomic Review 60 (December 1970): 895-911. 2E. C. Stakman, Richard Bradfield, and Paul C. Mangelsdorf, Campaigns against Hunger (Cambridge, Mass., 1967); Lester R. Brown, "The Agricultural Revolution in Asia," Foreign Affairs 46 (July 1968): 688-98; Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group, Agricultural Revolution in SoutheastAsia: Impact on Grain Production and Trade, vol. 1 (New York, 1970) (hereafter SEADAG). 119 This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Thu, 26 Mar 2015 16:06:08 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 120 V. W. Ruttan and YujiroHayami hand tools, and husbandry practices was a major source of produc- tivity growth in prehistory and in the classical civilizations.3 It is well known that the transfer of new crops (potatoes, maize, tobacco, and others) from the new continents to Europe after the discovery of the Americas had a dramatic impact on European agriculture. The technological bases for the staple exports of many developing coun- tries-cocoa in West Africa and rubber in Southeast Asia, for ex- ample-occurred as a result of the international diffusion of crop varieties. Before agricultural research and extension were institutionalized, this diffusion took place as a by-product of travel, exploration, and communication undertaken primarily for other purposes.4 Over a long gestation period-several decades and even centuries-exotic plants, animals, equipment, and husbandry techniques were gradu- ally introduced and adapted to local conditions. In the 19th century the international diffusion process became more highly in- stitutionalized. National governments established agencies deliber- ately to seek out and introduce exotic crop varieties and animal breeds.5 Colonial governments and the great trading companies operating under their protection sought to introduce crops with export potential into new areas of cultivation. Over time, these efforts have had a substantial impact on the location of staple pro- duction and on international trading patterns in crop and animal products. The enormous agricultural productivity differences among coun- tries, combined with the success of earlier diffusion efforts, have 3See Carl O. Sauer, Agricultural Origins and Dispersals: The Domestication of Animals and Foodstuffs,2d ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), pp. 113-34; N. I. Vavilov, The Origin, Variation, Immunityand Breeding of CultivatedPlants, trans. from the Russian by K. Starr Chester, Chronica Botanica, vol. 13, nos. 1-6 (1949-50). See also David R. Harris, "New Light on Plant Domestication and the Origins of Agriculture: A Review," GeographicalReview 57 (January 1967): 90-107; Folke Dovring, "The Transformation of European Agriculture," in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, pt. 2, The Industrial Revolution and After, ed. H. J. Habakkuk and M. Postan (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 604-72; Ping-Ti Ho, "Early-ripening Rice in Chinese History," Economic HistoryReview 9, ser. 2 (December 1956): 200-18. 4See, for example, Wayne D. Rasmussen, "Diplomats and Plant Collectors: The South American Commission, 1817-1818," Agricultural History 29 (January 1955): 22-31. 5Nelson Klose, America'sCrop Heritage: The History of Foreign Plant Introduction by the Federal Government (Ames, Iowa, 1950); Knowles A. Ryerson, "History and Sig- nificance of Foreign Plant Introduction Work of the United States Department of Agriculture," Agricultural History 7 (July 1933): 110-28. This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Thu, 26 Mar 2015 16:06:08 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TechnologyTransfer in Agriculture 121 often been interpreted to imply that more effective diffusion of known agricultural technology among countries could represent an efficient source of economic growth in agricultural productivity and production in the less developed countries. This perspective im- posed a "naive diffusion" or "extention bias" to much of the national and international aid efforts for agricultural development that emerged after World War II. In reviewing the agricultural devel- opment efforts of the 1950s and early 1960s, Albert Moseman em- phasized that "this 'extention bias' met with only limited success because of the paucity of applicable indigenous technology and the general unsuitability of U.S. temperate zone materials and practices to tropical agricultural conditions."6 JIn this paper, from earlier research on the diffusion of culture and technology, we draw insights that can contribute to a more adequate understanding of the processes involved in the in- ternational transfer of agricultural technology and the impact of such transfer on the location of agricultural production and in- ternational trade in agricultural commodities. This analysis leads us to place major emphasis on the emergence of national exper- iment-station capacity for adaptive research and development as a critical element in the international transfer or "naturalization" of agricultural technology. II. Diffusion Models and International TechnologyTransfer There are multiple traditions of research on diffusion processes: in anthropology, economics, geography, sociology, and other dis- ciplines. Each tradition has evolved a somewhat different model of the diffusion process. Aside from differences in terminology, real differences among these models exist because they are concerned with different aspects of diffusion phenomena. The main focus of sociologists and geographers has been on the impact of commu- nication (or interaction) and sociocultural resistance to innovation on the pattern of diffusion over time and across space.7 The models of 6A. H. Moseman, Building Agricultural ResearchSystems in the Developing Nations (New York, 1970), p. 71. 7For a review of these several traditions see Elihu Katz, Herbert Hamilton, and Martin L. Levin, "Traditions of Research on the Diffusion of Innovation," American SociologicalReview 28 (April 1963): 237-52; Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (New York, 1962); Allan Pred, "Postscript," in Torsten Hagerstrand, Innovation Diffusion as a Spatial Process (Chicago, 1967), pp. 299- 324; Delbert T. Myren, Bibliogra-