Hinton: I don't know about that.

Paddock: I understand Barcenas includes the forestry school the U.S. government helped establish 10 years ago and later helped merge with the agricultural school there.

Hinton: I don't know anything about that. You must remember that I have only been here 15 months. There is a lot about previous programs I don't know. Paddock: Is any money going into the experiment station at Barcenas? Hinton: What experiment station? There is no experiment station there in the sense any of us would think of one. It's a work farm for the Barcenas students. The farm is terribly run down, stupidly managed, and the United States has never helped it with funds.

Paddock: I don't mean the school's farm, I mean the experiment station. When I worked here in the 1950s this and the station at Chocola formed a major U. S. government effort.

...

Hinton: I know nothing about it. I'm still learning. I have my hands full trying to keep track of what is going on today. I don't have the time to go through all the past records.

Paddock: What U. S.-supported project are Guatemala's officials most enthusiastic about?

Hinton: None. There is probably no one in the Guatemalan government who would be sorry about our leaving or even notice if we left tomorrow. I'm talking about projects. Loans are another matter. Everybody wants loans.

Paddock: I'm interested to know why you chose the Los Brillantes coastal experiment station and the nearby agricultural school at Barcenas as projects for the new ambassador to see on his first trip into the country last week, and also why you considered them worthy of inspection by Congressman Clarence Long, who went with him.

Hinton: The trip was planned for the Congressman and he didn't want any briefings. He wanted to get out into the country and these fit his two-day itinerary nicely.

Paddock: What is the most important thing AID can do in Guatemala?

Hinton: Be smart enough to operate as a catalyst for change. We should emphasize the training of people and the need for changes in their fundamental attitudes. In addition to giving them new technical skills, we should expose them to new ideas.

Paddock: How would you do this?

Hinton: We are doing it in a training program in social sciences at the local university.

Paddock: How did you happen to choose social sciences?

Hinton: We had a study made of the university, and the study showed this was the area of greatest need.

Paddock: Who made the study?

Hinton: Gene Martin.

Paddock: What is his specialty?

Hinton: He is a social scientist.

This is an old story. In 1963 AID hired the Center of International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to find an answer to the agricultural dilemma of the world's hungry nations. The center assembled a group of experts who set about interviewing agriculturalists and scientists from such other fields as anthropology, sociology, and psychology. The $100,000 study, published in book form, showed that each specialist finds solutions in terms of his own discipline. If you hire a social scientist to study the university, you end up with a solution that involves social science.

I myself am no different. Being a former corn breeder, I lose few opportunities to emphasize that corn is of major importance in Central America and Mexico. That I know this about myself makes me wary of the same bias in others. Paddock: What do you consider Guatemala's most serious problem? Hinton (after a discussion of some political dilemmas): Agriculture. And for the first time we are going to take a serious look at the Guatemalan farm picture. He went on to explain that through his efforts, a contract had been arranged with Iowa State University to send a team of agricultural economists to Guatemala to make an analysis of the role of agriculture in the development of the Guatemalan economy.

Paddock: Why are you using Iowa State University?

Hinton: Because it's a good agricultural school.

Paddock: Are you familiar with the Iowa State-Guatemala Tropical Research Center, operated here by Iowa State from 1945 to 1955? That was the program which brought me to Guatemala originally.

Hinton: I've never heard of it.

Paddock: That program emphasized agriculture. It was then taken over by the International Cooperation Administration which, as you know, was the predecessor agency of your own AID. At one time the annual U.S. budget for Guatemalan agriculture was nearly $1 million. That certainly represented a major interest in those days.

Hinton: I've been here too short a time to know the details of previous programs. However, I know Iowa State is a good university and they have good men. Of the four authors of the study for which Hinton had contracted Iowa State, only one was then in Guatemala. He was a young graduate student named Eric Graber, and I sensed he was doing most of the field work for the study. Our conversation went like this:

Paddock: Are you familiar with an earlier Iowa State agricultural program in Guatemala?

Graber: I have heard there was some kind of program but that's all I know about it.

Paddock: I am interested in what you think has been the most effective U.S. effort in Guatemala.

Graber: The Peace Corps. Of course I'm prejudiced because I was once with the Peace Corps.

Paddock: What do you consider to be the most effective AID program in Guatemala?

Graber: I haven't found one.

Paddock: What will your current study indicate?

Graber: We would like to determine the priorities for investment in agriculture. Paddock: Do you know what use will be made of the report for which you are collecting data?

Graber: I really have no idea.

EVEN IOWA FORGETS

In April, 1969, Iowa State University published the report, a full two inches thick, titled: Agricultural Development and Policy in Guatemala. When I read that its purpose was to review the extent "to which the agricultural sector has changed since 1950," I realized it covered part of the 1945-55 period when Iowa State had operated its own agricultural experiment station in Guatemala. Writing Graber, I asked if his group had consulted any of the reports published during the course of that earlier program. He replied: "I don't remember those specific reports." Thus, like AID, Iowa State, too, has no memory.

I wrote to Hinton some nine months after the report had been released, asking two questions: How has the report been used? Which of its recommendations have been acted upon? He replied that the report had been circulated widely but had "encountered a fairly general lack of interest."

Not surprising! The report begins with these deadly naive and patronizing sentences about a nation which, it would seem, no one at Iowa State had ever heard of before (in fact, they might have been written in 1852 by John L. Stephens, the first U.S. envoy to Guatemala):

"Guatemala lies just south of the Yucatan peninsula in Central America. It is bounded on the north and west by Mexico, on the east by Belice, to the south and east by Honduras and El Salvador, and on the southwest by the Pacific Coast. Although Guatemala contains only 108.889 square kilometers, approximately the size of the state of Louisiana, it has a very wide geographical diversity."

This study, remember, was intended primarily for Guatemalan officials and Americans stationed there. I wonder how many bothered to read through this two-inch rehash of all the appallingly familiar data which had been kicking around the back offices for years. Fifty officials? Twenty? Five? No one?

In his letter, Hinton commented that it was "still too early" to say which of the Iowa State recommendations would actually be put into practice, but "I am happy to tell you. . . the Government of Guatemala seems to have accepted one of the recommendations, the idea of placing more emphasis on basic grain cereals, particularly corn."

Hinton's letter was postmarked Santiago, Chile. He had been transferred there to head up another program where, in the deeply entrenched tradition of AID, he doubtless was again starting from scratch.

98-358-73-7

When I wrote to the new U.S. mission director in Guatemala, his assistan answered, "I can assure you that the report has had a major impact. . . . The result: another U.S. loan to Guatemala, this time for $23 million.

I did not have the heart to write to Hinton that the corn seed stock fron the old Iowa State College-Guatemala Tropical Research Center is sitting in a storeroom at the experiment station at Barcenas. It was put in storage 10 years ago when ICA stopped funding the program. A faithful Guatemalan there is keeping the seed collection in what he believes is good order, just in case someday someone wants to use it.

How could this have happened? Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson from his years of experience, pointed at the answer when, after a highly optimistic White House briefing about Vietnam by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he said President Johnson had been "led down a garden path. . . . "Actually, Acheson is more exactly reported to have said, "With all due respect, Mr. President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff don't know what they're talking about." He claimed that field reports written near the scene of combat in Vietnam were rewritten as they passed through each higher echelon. With each rewriting the reports reflected less and less the pessimism at the front and more and more in optimism that prevailed in the Pentagon.

The same reporting situation occurs with development projects in the "third world." and with the same result. Gunnar Myrdal, writing about South Asia, said, "Optimism, and therefore approaches that make optimism seem more realistic, is itself a natural urge for intellectuals. . . . All [economic] planning. . . tends to err on the side of optimism. . . ." This can similarly be. found in Latin America and, I am sure, in Africa as well. (In virtually every interview for this book which involved an unfavorable view of a development project, I was told, "Don't quote me." But no one ever said that when their remarks were favorable. Thus the syndrome feeds upon itself.)

The most easily understood examples of this are the numerous congressional fact-finding missions where congressmen travel abroad to evaluate foreign aid projects. The Congressman arrives at the foreign capital; he is met by the Ambassador and the AID mission director. Off they all go to see the mission's best project, and at its best appearance. You remember, like Sunday dinner for the preacher or parents' day at school. Who shows the failures? Who would be so naive as to suggest showing them? Who even wants to see them?

[From the Progressive, June 1973]

THE BROWNING OF THE GREEN REVOLUTION

Our Fascination With Science and Technology Has Blinded Us on More Basic Problems in Hungry Nations, Especially Exploding Population

(William and Elizabeth Paddock)

President Truman said in his inaugural address in 1949, "For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and the skill to relieve the suffering of [the hungry nations] . . . We should make available to peace-loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realize their aspirations for a better life."

Since then every President has been saying we have the capacity to solve the world's development problems through the use of science and technology. And, in fact, nearly all the people of the world have come to place unquestioning faith in technology's capacity to resolve their problems. But the results run dismally far behind expectations.

One could list a dozen explanations for the ineffectiveness of foreign aid. We wonder if the basic reason is not our almost religious fascination with science and technology combined with our blindness to their limitations: for instance. the limitation that science and technology cannot compensate for the paucity of resources of a hungry nation; for instance, the ecology of most of the underdeveloped world can be as disastrously damaged by the technology of development as is already apparent in the industrialized nations.

"Our society is trained to accept all new technology as progress or to look upon. it as an aspect of fate," said George Wald, Harvard's Nobel laureate biologist.

"Should one do everything one can? The usual answer is 'Oh, of course,' but the right answer is 'Of course not.'

As we get deeper into the 1970s we may well regret many of the fine gifts technology has given us as we are forced to cope with their consequences-consequences not anticipated in the original planning or, worse, callously ignored.

The Aswan Dam, when completed, will increase Egypt's irrigated land by 1.3 million acres. The per capita income in Egypt is projected to increase by ten per cent. Construction of dams and the related irrigation works are enormously costly. In the long run, however, most of them do return a profit to the nation because irrigated fields are the most productive of all agricultural land and be cause the electricity generated can be a valid resource.

Nevertheless, land reclaimed for irrigation often turns out to be a catastrophe. Since the earliest pharaohs, Egypt's narrow strip of agricultural land along the Nile has been remarkably resistant to abuse. This irrigated land still requires less fertilizer than that of most countries. Mother Nile carries the eroded soils from central Africa and the highlands of Ethiopia and thus replenishes each year the nutrients of Egypt's soils. Now, however, with the new high Aswan Dam, a real fear exists that needed silt will settle in the damned-up lake and the irrigation canals will no longer rejuvenate Egypt's land.

In fact, evidence already shows that a lack of silt carried by the Nile into the Mediterranean has reduced biological activity there, cutting off the food used by plankton which feed the fish that in turn support the fishing industry-an ecological consequence no one considered before undertaking to build the dam. And the Egyptian shoreline is rapidly eroding because of the change in the Nile flow.

But this is only part of the problem. Schistosomiasis, an internal infection often fatal in man, is another threatening result of the dam. The disease is transmitted by snails. When irrigation is seasonal, that is, dependent upon flooding or rainfall rather than controlled by dams, the snail population is generally shortlived. However, when irrigation water comes from a permanent, steady source like a dam, the incidence of this disease increases tremendously, usually from just a few per cent to well over one-half of the population, sometimes even approaching 100 per cent.

The story of malaria control by DDT is well known. It was once widely taken for granted, not merely hoped, that this terrible disease would be wiped off the earth. Instead, on the one hand DDT-resistant malarial mosquitoes evolved and, on the other, the pesticide is now recognized both to upset dangerously nature's ecological balance and to have injurious effects on humans. DDT is a classical example of a technological boomerang. Today governments ban its use, but in 1948 Paul Müller received the Nobel Prize for discovering it.

Maybe the use of science to fight the problems of development is like that ancient fable of the dragon's teeth. As the benefits of technology are strewn throughout the undeveloped world, the crop that rises is not the beautiful flowers of progress but a host of evil soldiers more threatening than any previous problem.

Perhaps the best illustration of this is the Green Revolution.

In the mid-1960s any agricultural scientist worth his salt was warning of impending famine in Asia, Latin America, and certain areas of Africa. The lessdeveloped world was losing the capacity to feed itself. Yet most of these nations had been consistent and often major exporters of grain in the 1920s and 1930s. The reason for the change was, of course, the population growth.

But by 1970 the warnings were of a wholly different sort. The world had an overabundance of grain. If anything, the danger immediately ahead seemed to be oversupply and glut.

A startling turnabout had taken place in the agricultural output of several parts of the developing world. In 1970 the Philippines reported achieving selfsufficiency in rice for the first time in history. Malaysia, South Vietnam, and Indonesia predicted the same. Pakistan says it will shortly be self-sufficient in all cereals, and India expressed a similar hope. Optimism rides tall in the saddle even though there are indications that some of this self-sufficiency will be shortlived. The increases are credited to a "Green Revolution" which is based on the introduction and the rapidly spreading use of new "miracle grains" in the rice fields and wheat stands of South Asia. The Green Revolution, it is said, is the result of a scientific breakthrough, the result of the marriage of scientist and development administrator. To many, it is a turning point in man's long war against the biological limitations of the earth. On examination, however, "skirmish" seems a more accurate description.

Bert Tollefson, assistant administrator of the Agency for International Development, gave the 1970 "official" U.S. AID story of the agricultural revolution in South Asia:

"What has happened in less than three years is revealed in a few statistics... Overall food production has risen fourteen per cent in the period 1967–69. And, in South Asia alone-the crucial countries of India and Pakistan-the increase has been twenty-seven per cent. AID worked with foundations, universities, and others in developing new farming methods, including the most efficient use of miracle wheat and rice seeds that have brought about the Green Revolution." The statement is misleading because it gives all the credit for this sudden, new Green Revolution to the contribution of science. Consider the following four items:

WEATHER

In South Asia, 1965 and 1966 were poor weather years for the farmer, but the succeeding years were good. From 1967 through 1970, the same years of the Green Revolution in rice and wheat, India increased production of barley, chickpeas, tea, jute, cotton, and tobacco by twenty to thirty per cent, and did so with no new high-yielding varieties. A drought followed by rain will cause a spurt in production with or without new technology.

This improvement in weather is far and away the most important factor for increased production. But weather seldom gets the credit it deserves. When crops are poor, governments blame it on the weather. When crops are good, governments take the credit for their foresight and wisdom in providing fertilizer and loans to the farmer and for their clairvoyance in having conducted the scientific research needed to develop improved crop varieties.

LIMITATIONS OF THE HIGH-YIELDING VARIETIES

Since the early 1950s, most of the developing world has been increasing its total agricultural production and its average yields per acre. This has been possible through greater use of fertilizer and irrigation, and also the opening up of new agricultural land.

India, from 1951 to 1961 (before the Green Revolution), increased agricultural production by forty-six per cent. This was done partially with new technology but primarily by putting new land into production. As new land became scarce, the increase tapered off. Simply to maintain current per capita consumption levels, India must now increase cereal production by three million tons each year. The development of the new wheat and rice varieties having high fertilizer response resulted from imaginative research that indeed merits recognition. However, the press agent's "miracle" and "wonder" appellation given these cereals distorted out of proportion their influence on the world.

In India, where one-third of Asia's population lives, only the new wheats have made an impact. This is unfortunate, since in India wheat is a far less important crop than is rice (the production of which is three times that of wheat). Actually, according to a recent study by economic forecaster Louis Bean, the trend in increased rice yields, which began in the early 1960s as a result of new technology, has leveled off and stagnated at the 1964-65 level. Thus, the "miracle" rice has produced no miracle in India or in Bangladesh-a traditional rice-growing area— although it has done extremely well in Pakistan, normally not recognized as a major rice producer.

DEPENDENCE ON IRRIGATION

Irrigation is the lifeblood of the new cereals. Virtually all the new wheats in Mexico, India, Pakistan, and Turkey-the areas where they have made an impact-are grown under artificial irrigation. The new rice varieties also require carefully controlled irrigation. In the Philippines, where the new rice is grown under irrigation, harvests are reported as two to three times that of traditional local varieties. However, on nonirrigated land the new varieties do no better than the standard ones. This is important to understand. Where either irrigation or fertilizer is absent, there is no revolution.

DEPENDENCE ON SUBSIDIES

Green Revolution publicists ignore the financial cost at which wheat and rice production has been achieved in some countries. The much-heralded Philippine rice self-sufficiency is a classic example.