Exporting American Agriculture: The Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico, 1943-53

Abstract

Between 1943 and 1961, the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) conducted a programme in technical agricultural assistance in Mexico designed to increase crop productivity and encourage agricultural self-reliance. While this programme was considered successful by both the RF and US development advocates, its ‘success’ was in fact limited to those crops, farmers, and agricultural students that most closely resembled their American counterparts. The programme failed where the American model of agricultural progress did not fit Mexican conditions. What began as an attempt to export American agricultural practice and ideology, then, was modified to address only those elements of Mexican agriculture that were already partly Americanized. © 1986, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.