Rural Sociology 5500 — Second Exam
Diffusion of Innovation
(Exam #2) Instructions
For each question, be sure to back up your points using information from class lectures and discussion—and make sure that you cite the articles
ooks we have read for this class.
Your grade is based on the quality and completeness of your response. Quality exams have the following attributes:
1. The essays have organizational clarity. (Is the discussion clear? Is the text tight and to the point? Do your arguments follow a clear, logical path?)
2. The essay responses are appropriate and co
ect in interpretation of the course material.
3. The essays are strong in analytical depth. (Does the discussion show thoughtful consideration of the material at a level that would be expected for a student at a major university?)
4. The essays are comprehensive as much as possible given our limited page length.
5. The essays are edited– lack of editing makes it difficult to understand your points. The quality of editing also indicates the amount of effort you have put into the exam.
Please be careful in organizing your responses. Use headings and state the part of the question that you are answering. After you have written your responses, please take some time to edit your answers and to make sure the organization of the paper is clear. Citing references: It is easiest to give the author's name and year of publication only in the text ---for example, (Harper and Leicht 2019 p XXXXXXXXXXPlease add a bibliography page at the end of your assignment.
As a reminder: quotation marks must be used to indicate text that is taken word-for-word from another person, website, or publication-- and you must ensure that your essay is your own personal work and that you have not taken your ideas from another student. Please make sure that you do not share your exam answers and ideas with any other student—students must earn their exam grade independently.
Page length. For graduate students-minimum 5 pages
12-point font, Times New Roman font, double spaced, one-inch margins.
Questions
1. As traditional innovation diffusion programs were implemented in developing countries, social scientists began to see the limitations of these programs for improving public well-being.
(A) What are the limitations of traditional, top-down innovation diffusion/ technology transfer programs--for improving the well-being of poorer populations and the public at large?
(B) What are some of the bottom-up strategies for improving public well-being? (Your examples should include examples of participatory models.) What are the strengths and limitations of bottom-up strategies for producing social change?
In this question your focus should be on the material in Part V of the course—you will use at least two class readings by different authors from Part V of this course.
PART V. DEVELOPMENT IN THE GLOBAL SYSTEM AND BOTTOM-UP DIFFUSION
WEEK 13 (November 14 and 16)
Globalization/Development, Technology, the Poor, and Gender
1) Harpe
Leicht, The Emerging Global System: Development and Globalization, Chapter 11.
2) Robert K. Schaeffer, “Technology, Food, and Hunger,” Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic, and Environmental Change (Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), pp XXXXXXXXXXAvailable on Carmen/Canvas, titled: Schaeffer, Technology, Food, Hunge
Longo, Stefano B., and Richard York. 2015. “How Does Information Communication Affect Energy Use?” Human Ecology Review 22 (1), pp. 55-71.
"Bottom-Up" Approaches to Social Change: Participatory Approaches and Diffusion across Communities
1) Bruges, Mu
ay, and Willie Smith. 2008. “Participatory Approaches for Sustainable Agriculture: A Contradiction in Terms?” Agriculture and Human Values 2008, Volume 25, pp; 13-23.
2) Hayward, Simpson, and Wood. 2004. “Still Left Out in the Cold: Problematising Participatory Research and Development.” Sociologia Ruralis 44 (1): 95-108.
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Understanding Globalization
Rowman & Littlefield
Technology, Food and Hunge
Robert Schaeffe
1997
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7
* Technology, Food, and Hunger
D uring the past century, successive technological revolutions hav~ increased food supplies in the United States and around the world. But while
agricultural technologies have increased world food production, which has
grown even faster than world population, they have also displaced U.S. farmers
and contributed to hunger around the world.
Agricultural revolutions in the United States raised farm costs and lowered
the prices farmers earned for their crops. These developments forced millions
of farmers off the land, with important consequences for rural communities,
u
an consumers, and the environment. In the South, the introduction of
agricultural technologies greatly increased the volume of food produced. But
ecause technology was typically used to grow crops for export and for animal
feed, it displaced staple crops and small farmers, contributing to widespread
hunger. The irony is that growing food supplies and gnawing hunger go hand
in hand in the modem world. Jn this chapter, we will examine the social and
environmental problems associated with technological change in agricultural
settings, first in the United States, and then around the world.
TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS
Three technological revolutions in agriculture have occu
ed during the past
century, and we are on the verge of a fourth. The first began in the l 920s, with
the introduction of tractors and soybeans. The second got under way in the
1940s, with the introduction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, hy
id seeds,
animal antibiotics, and government-supplied power and water, all elements of
what came to be known as the "Green Revolution." The introduction of Green
Revolution technologies began in the United States. The introduction and adop-
tion of these technologies by farmers around the world resulted in a third
153
154 Chapter 7
agricultural revolution during the 1960s and 1970s. A fourth revolution, which
is associated with the introduction of new biological and genetic technologies,
is just now getting under way.
Each of these technological revolutions transformed agriculture and increased
food production. The first revolution began in the 1920s, at a time when seven
million family farmers worked the land, using horses for traction. The typical
I SO-acre farm planted SO acres of corn or wheat, grew another SO acres of oats
to feed the horses, and kept SO acres in pasture to rest the land, though farmers
grazed their beef or dairy cattle on this fallow pasture .1 The a
ival in the United
States of immigrants from Europe, Latin America, and Asia swelled the popula-
tion and kept the demand for farm products strong and prices high. Indeed, the
prices farmers received were as high as at any time during this century. Because
their expenses for !and, horses, and housing were low and stable, and prices
were high-wheat sold for $JOO a ton and corn for $76 a ton-farmers could
support their families and foster vi
ant rural communities nea
y.l
Although farm supplies fluctuated annually, depending on the weather, the
elation between supply and demand remained fairly close or balanced from the
farmers' perspective. Moreover, the existence of millions of small farms sup-
ported local banks, small businesses, and neighborly towns across the country.
But during the 1920s, the introduction of cheap tractors made by the emerging
auto industry transformed U.S. agriculture, leading in the 1930s to glut and
crisis.
In 1910, only 1.000 farmers used tractors. But by 1920, with earnings from
high wartime food prices, farmers had purchased 2SO,OOO tractors from Henry
Ford and John Deere, and by 1930, 900,000 farmers owned the new, hard-
working machines.' The introduction of tractors on the farm was important
ecause it eliminated the need for horses and for the oats they consumed. Farm-
ers could stop growing oats for horses and, instead, plant com or soybeans. "As
powered machinery replaced the horse, more land became available for cash
crops," noted Peter Phillips, an agricultural economist.• In the 1920s and 1930s,
many farmers began planting soybeans. Because this legume fixes nitrogen, it
can be used in rotation with corn to replenish corn-depleted soil. And because
its oils can be used in industry (for paints and varnishes), in food processing (for
cooking oil and margarine), and in animal feed (its protein-rich residue can be
fed to cows). soybeans often took over fo
ner oat fields.
These developments enabled farmers to increase the volume of food supplies
enormously. In a sense, the widespread adoption of tractors and soybeans "was
equivalent to the discovery and development of a new continent, of a new North
America, in the 20th century," argues Jean-Pie
e Berlan, an agricultural econo-
mist. 5
The problem was that the new tractor-based agriculture produced huge sup-
plies of food, leading to gluts and lower prices. Meanwhile, the cost of buying
and maintaining the new machinery significantly increased expenses for farmers.
Technology, Food, and Hunger 155
When industry in the United States and around the world laid off millions of
workers during the Great Depression that followed the 1929 stock market crash,
the demand for food weakened and agricultural prices fell. Wheat prices fell 20
percent, to $ 79 a ton, in the 19 30s. 6 Under these conditions-mounting food
supplies and falling demand, at a time when the cost of growing food was ris-
ing-many farmers could not earn enough money to survive. As they lost their
ability to lease land or repay loans, they were forced to abandon their farms in
droves, Perhaps 1.5 million farmers were driven out of farming as a result of the
Depression, a process depicted in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.7
Things for farmers might have been even worse if the drought of XXXXXXXXXX
had not also reduced supplies: "The calamitous years, which wiped out almost
half the corn crop and a large segment of the wheat crop were, in their own
peculiar way, an economic blessing since they restored the balance of supply
and demand, a prerequisite for economic recovery. No government agricultural
policy would have dared to do what the weather did."8 The problems associated
with this farm crisis were solved, temporarily, by the out
eak of World War II.
Because the worldwide war disrupted or destroyed agricultural production in
many countries, global food supplies fell. And because war-related industries
hired millions of workers and the military drafted millions more into service, the
demand for food greatly increased. As a result, prices rose to their highest level
in the twentieth century. With wheat prices soaring to $122 a ton and com to
$94 a ton, "net farm income quadrupled, rising from $4, 5 billion to $12.3 billion
etween 1940 and 1945."9 U.S. farmers prospered.
After the war, U.S. agriculture was transformed by a second technological
evolution. Whereas the introduction of the tractor spu
ed a substantial
increase in food production in the 1920s and 1930s, new biological and chemi-
cal technologies greatly increased food supplies in the postwar period. The new
hy
id seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and antibiotics, which were devel-
oped by government-sponsored research scientists and then produced and mar-
keted by the emerging seed and agricultural chemical industries, dramatically
improved crop yields and increased food supplies. 10 Together with the tractors
and farm machinery developed during the earlier period, and the extension of
government i
igation projects in the arid West and the provision of electrical
power to rural communities, these technological innovations transformed agri-
culture, resulting in a series of changes known collectively as the "Green Revolu-
tion."
The Green Revolution enabled farmers to increase yields 2 percent per acre
annually since 1948. They increased com yields from 38.2 bushels an acre in
1930 to US bushels in 1985, soybeans from 21.7 to 34.l bushels, and wheat
from 16.5 to 37.5 bushels in the same period. Milk production per cow
increased from 5,314 pounds in 1950 to 13,786 pounds in XXXXXXXXXXThe new
technologies created food supplies equal to that produced by another North
American continent.
156 Chapter 7
The extension of U.S. Green Revolution technologies around the world cre-