Andean Laboratories: Agrarian Reform, Agricultural Innovation, and Armed Conflict in Peru, 1950-2005

Abstract

This study examines the unique, local green revolution that took place in Peru as scientists in the second half of the twentieth century sought to adapt transnational agricultural technology to the high-altitude environments of the Andes. Initially, U.S. institutions such as the Rockefeller Foundation sponsored agricultural experimentation on the Peruvian coast, but they failed to address how new technology would reach growing Indigenous and mestizo communities in the Andes. By the 1960s, community protest over a lack of land and farming technology, as well as mass migration to coastal cities, helped prompt the Peruvian military under General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975) to intervene in national politics and pursue both agrarian reform and agricultural innovation. Although the Velasco administration fell short of its goals, its reforms ushered in a new era in which innovators from government offices, universities, and NGOs began to work more directly with Andean communities than ever before. As these innovators worked to apply technology such as hybrid seeds, pest control, pedigree livestock, and megadams to Andean landscapes, they often realized that community knowledge and perspectives were crucial to the success of any project. In the late 1980s, the nation’s internal armed conflict interrupted rural development projects, yet many communities and scientists persisted. In scholarship, the history of violence overshadows the history of science, yet a look beyond the edges of the armed conflict reveals a robust history of innovation efforts that, despite shortcomings, helped raise agricultural production in some communities.