Original scientific paper
One Innovation: Hybrid Maize
Henri Mendras
; National Centre for Scientific Researches, Paris, France
Abstract
This minutial and at the same time simple Mendras's analysis of the diffusion of hybrid maize in the south-west France shows rarely complex psychic and social mechanisms of the diffusion of innovation
into the village - even then when, from the agro-technological point
of view, the transition from the domestic to hybrid maize is very
simple one and the economic superiority obvious. Taking the results of the inquiry made among the peasants in the Nay valley in 1960 as
well as other sources as the basis for his analysis, the author proved
that the peasants accepted hybrid maize after some five or six years
- the period needed for hybrid maize to acclimatize in the area and
for peasants to make sure of its advantage over the domestic »Biscayan bulky rusty« one. For, peasants do not make decisions upon the mere technical and economic rationality like the agronomists
and other experts do. The peasants follow another type of rationality:
the peasant hesitates because of insecurity, as he has to give up closed peasant's economy and to enter the market economy, and since the market economy brings along the change of the way of life,
for peasant it is equal to an adventure. When making decision the peasant also uses the criteria of moral valuation, and it is completely
different system of rationality and values: from the domestic maize's
(to peasant obvious) aesthetic and nutritive qualities for breeding of
poultry and pigs (domestic maize is nicer and better), different measures of the quantity of yield, the fact that the hybrid is originally
from America where from other bad things came, Manichaean
moralizing that the foreign is better than the domestic andthe need for
the hybrid to be tested in the same growing conditions as the domestic one, to the neighbour's sarcasm and ironic remarks because
an individual peasant's hybrid has late vegetation and harvest, as well
as the acceptance of one's own de-qualification and immaturity. The
peasants have accepted the hybrid upon its integration in the system
of cultures, and with the change of the traditional use of maize it found its place in the arrangement of cultures, the production system
and commercialization. It was only in 1959 that the breeding of pigs
ceased to be lucrative, because of the poor sell, Hybrid maize meant
simple and limited change within the production system that was opposite to the peasant's »spirit« since instead of the »final product« - a fat pig that required work and care, he had to sell the »raw« vegetal
product, maize. The peasant is a master of his trade and maize is no sort of a »master-piece« that should be attributed to its »creator's«
ability and experience in equal way. Secondly, the peasants realized
that the hybrid was showing the way to a whole series of changes. Several years later they had to introduce other expensive changes:
growing hybrid is economical only on large areas and that requires
expensive mechanization (tractor, picker etc.) and intensification, seeding on the best grounds and replacing stubble grains with maize
(reducing meadows - that generations were longing for - to mere fields, and the fields under maize which isn't good for making bread
as wheat is, arises general detestation, in particular because the fields
are then again being turned into meadows), the introduction of advisor who replaces the father with the necessity for peasant to learn
the whole life as there is no more a tested procedure he can rely on,
as well as the dependence on the co-operative, on the loans that are
decided about by the very same people who even earlier made decisions about the peasants. All in all, the final consequence of this
apparently small change is the peasant's deprivation of independence
and the change of his way of life. If domestic farming is understood
as the traditional peasantry and peasant's society, hybrid maize kills it because it destroys small farmers and through this the whole system
of social stratification and forms of social life. The former Bearnaise
village dies and it is aware of that. For that reason the peasants' worry and fear are justified. Behind the inauguration of that new maize there are some real' political intentions that the peasants did not see. The author also elaborated different attitude of »the red« (communists) and »the righteous« (Catholics) towards this novelty, and showed as well that the Church formed an alliance with technical
progress and economy success. The author made the analysis from
the peasant's point of view and for that reason in terms of purpose, methodology, category and interpretation his examination of the
dynamics of introduction of hybrid maize - depending on the family
smallholdings' assets belongs among the rare impeccable studies of the diffusion of innovation. Simply, it reveals the role of social, demographic, culture and other factors, like the great stimulating
role of the offspring, the impact of the father and son relationship
(in particular in the patriarchal type of family) - along with technological and economic ones - in the decision making, as well as the gap that hybrid maize made between those who can adopt it and
who find it lucrative and those who refuse it or who, adopting it, only
temporarily mend their already shaken economic situation.
Keywords
hybrid maize; way of life; diffusion of innovation and agricultural production system; peasants' decision making
Hrčak ID:
36917
URI
Publication date:
12.5.2009.
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