Farmer Networks Key to Agricultural Innovation in Mexico

Grower in Mexico's Yaqui Valley (Stanford University)

Researchers at Stanford University in California have documented the vital role played in Mexico by farmers’ support networks in encouraging agricultural sustainability. Ellen McCullough, now at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Pamela Matson of Stanford’s Program on Food Security and the Environment, published their findings online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Matson and other Stanford researchers have been working in the Yaqui Valley in Sonora, Mexico for nearly 20 years. This area is the birthplace of the “green revolution” in wheat and one of Mexico’s most productive regions. The valley currently has 225,000 hectares of irrigated wheat-based agriculture.

Among the overall objectives of Stanford’s research program is to demonstrate how science can influence agricultural policy in an area dealing with the environmental challenges faced by similar farming regions. For this study, McCullough and Matson interviewed growers, farm credit unions, and agricultural experts in the Yaqui Valley to better understand how farmers decide to adopt new technologies.

Growers in the Yaqui Valley have worked for a number of years with the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, known by its Spanish acronym, CIMMYT. The center is a not-for-profit organization dating back to the 1940s, which was once led by agricultural scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug.

The researchers found that despite CIMMYT’s reputation, innovations recommended by CIMMYT needed the endorsement of the farmers’ credit unions before being adopted. Credit unions in this part of Mexico provide more than loans and insurance. They also offer fertilizer and seed, and have largely supplanted the government’s role in providing technical expertise and management advice.

As an example, McCullough cited a project involving CIMMYT scientists and farmers to develop a nitrogen diagnostic tool that reduces fertilizer use without sacrificing crop yields. The device gives on-the-spot readings of nitrogen levels in the soil, and proved it could save farmers 12 to 17 percent of their profits. Yet most farmers rejected the nitrogen diagnostic tool until CIMMYT researchers convinced credit union officials that it was a worthwhile investment.

The research suggests that the belief in a direct line of scientific information from research lab to the grower is simplistic and inaccurate. “If researchers seek to produce relevant knowledge that ultimately influences decision making,” says Matson, “they must recognize the dynamics of the local knowledge system and participate purposefully and strategically in it.”

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