THE SOCIAL LESSONS OF PROJECT PUEBLA
by William Foote Whyte
Paper prepared for the Program on Policies for Science and Technology in
Developing Nations, Cornell University.
November I, 1975
THE SOCIAL LESSONS OF PROJECT PUEBLA
by William Foote Whyte
The publication by CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement
Center) of its final report on the Puebla Project (CIMMYT, 1974) provides
an opportunity to examine the lessons learned in an important and highly
publicized project in agricultural development. .The monograph presents
systematic and comprehensive agronomic and economic data, whose evaluation
I must leave to specialists in those fields. I shall concentrate here
on the social lessons to be learned from this project.
My purpose in writing this article is to point out that what seems to
me the most important social lesson to be learned from Project Puebla can
only be inferred from the monograph itself and is never clearly stated by
the authors. Since this conclusion seems to me to involve a veritable
revolution in the thinking of those undertaking agricultural development
projects, it is important that this interpretation be clearly stated and
documented. The basic point is that, while Project Puebla started out as a
program to demonstrate to small farmers the benefits they could achieve by
applying the findings of modern plant science research to the growing of maize,
the Project changed direction radically so as to incorporate knowledge that
the small farmers had gained from practical experience. The nature and
importance of this shift is the focus of this paper.
PROJECT PUEBLA PURPOSES
When Project Puebla was launched in 1968, building on the base of a
Rockefeller Foundation research program beginning in 1943, CIMMYT had already
achieved large Increases in wheat production In Mexico, and the new high
yielding varieties of wheat were having major impacts in other developing
nations. No comparable successes in corn yields had been achieved. The
differences in results may be attributed partly to the differences between
the two plants but also to differences in land tenure; The spectacular
Increases in wheat yields in Mexico had been achieved on large tracts of
irrigated land. Most of Mexico's corn was grownby small farmers in areas of
These comparisons led CIMMYT planners to recognize the need to orient
their Maize program so as to demonstrate how small Maize farmers could profit
from the findings of research.
In consultation with INIA (the Mexican National Agricultural Institute),
CIMMYT selected a part of the State of Puebla for its research and develop-
ment project. Puebla suited the purposes of the project both in terms of
size of land holdings and importance of maize. The average farm size in
1967 was 2.7 hectares, with 68.4% of the farms being two and a half hectares
or less. 69.4% of the cultivated area was devoted to maize, the second
most important crop being beans (15.9%). We should note, however, that
even those living on farms in Puebla derived a large part of their incomes
from other activities than the growing of maize or beans. A project survey
of 251 farmers In 1967 yielded an average family income of $666.80 from the
following sources: (p. 7)
Sources of Family Income Percent
Net Income from crops 30.4
Net Income from animals 28.4
Off-farm wage income .23.7
Other non-farm income 17.0
"The monograph reports that (ix)
...The action program of the Puebla Project was organized
Initially to include four major components: (a) varietal
Improvement of maize, (b) research to develop efficient
recommendations on maize production practices, (c) assis-
tance to farmers in proper use of new recommendations, and
(d) coordination of the activities of the service agencies,
the project team, and the farmers. Another component -
soclo-economic evaluation was added during the first year.
While the Project was planned and financed primarily by CIMMYT, on the
basis of grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, it was carried out primarily
by Mexicans, and in fact the coordinators were Mexicans.
CHANGES IN PROJECT DIRECTIONS
In keeping with the mission and expertise of CIMMYT, the original plan
called for concentration of agricultural research and development exclusively
upon maize. The project planners, of course, recognized that the farmers
would gain little benefit from information coming out of the research program
unless they had assistance in financing the new and increased inputs needed
and in securing the delivery of these inputs. They also recognized the
need to help protect the farmers against risks through crop insurance. There-
fore much of the field activity was concentrated upon working with agencies
providing credit, supplies, and crop insurance. But note that all of this
activity at first was focused around maize.
The Project's own figures (p. 85) give an estimate of a 30% increase
in maize yield among those adopting the new techniques over the years of
1969 through 1972. As the writers acknowledge, there is no way of determining
how much of the increase might have been achieved without the Project.
While this increase can be considered substantial, t -is hardly spectacular,
In comparison with the much higher increases achieved with high yielding
varieties of wheat supported by the new wheat technological package. (In
the judgement of the planners, hybrid corn seeds, which the farmers would
have to purchase, were not substantially better than the native varieties,
and therefore the emphasis in Project Puebla was not oh the introduction of
new varieties but rather on the improvement in agronomic practices.)
Probably the best index of the adoption of new maize technology by
farmers is found in the credit lists, since the new technology had higher
credit requirements than the technology traditionally used by farmers. In
1968 103 farmers were in the Puebla Program and the number grew rapidly to
4833 in 1970, covering an area of about 15.8% of that devoted to maize in
Puebla. After 1970, the number of adopters and the percentage planted with
the new technology continued to increase but at a much slower rate, reaching
only 7194 farmers and 25.8% of the area in 1973. The slowing down of this
Increase indicates some limitations in the effectiveness of the package the
Project was recommending which is now the focus of our attention.
Faced with this slowing down of progress, project staffers shifted their
efforts from trying to recruit farmers for the program to doing field
studies of the farms of the more successful non-adopters. The intellectual
revolution sprang out of the discovery or re-discovery of peasant rationality
in agricultural practices.
As Mauro Gorez put it to us,
In Mexico we had been mentally deformed by our professional
education. Without realizing what was happening to us, in
the classroom and in the laboratories we were learning that
scientists knew all that had so far been learned about agri-
culture and that the small farmers did not know anything.
Finally we had to realize that there was much we could learn
from the small farmers.
To oversimplify a complex set of findings, the researchers discovered
two agricultural production systems in use among the more successful non-adopters,
one involving the rotation of corn and beans, the other involving the inter-
planting of. the two crops.
In the rotational system, the farmer began with a planting of corn supported
by a rather heavy application of chicken manure. The second year, the farmer
planted beans without any fertilizer at all. For the third year, the farmer
reverted to corn but this time applied a small amount of chemical fertilizer -
or else he shifted back to the first year strategy, with another generous appli-
cation of chicken manure.
In the inter-planting system, the farmer planted beans between the rows
of corn, either at the same time or several weeks after he had the corn in.
With this system, the bean plants used the corn stalks to climb on, and, by
approximately doubling the intensity of the use of his small plot of land, the
farmer was able to increase his income from the land very substantially.
Inter-planting of corn and beans was strictly against the recommendations
of the planners of Plan Puebla. Struck by the obvious success of this violation
of the rules laid down by the experts, the researchers asked themselves: "Why
have we been telling people they should not inter-plant corn and beans?" The
first answer was that the experts claimed that such inter-planting complicated
the task of insect control. With the obvious success of the inter-planting
farmers, the researchers recognized that this was not a convincing argument.
When they had exhausted their efforts to discover a solid rationale for'the
expert ruling against Inter-planting, the researchers came upon the real origin
of that doctrine: "That is not the way the corn farmers do It in Iowa."
Fortunately, these discoveries did not lead the researchers to reverse
their previous orientation and go to the opposite extreme of assuming that the
farmers know everything and the professionals knew nothing. The researchers
found that, while the farmers were getting good results with the systems described
here, their strategies could yield still better results if modified by integra-
tion with knowledge coming out of laboratories and experiment station tests.
For example, the change agents explained to the farmers with the rotational
strategy that, while chicken manure was rich in certain elements needed by the
the plants, it was also totally lacking in some important plant nutrients. The
new recommendation called for application of a relatively small amount of
chemical fertilizer especially mixed to supply the nutrients lacking in chicken
manure. Furthermore, for farmers practicing both systems, the change agents
sought to point out that, when fertilizer was applied in the right amounts at
the right times, corn would flourish when seeds were planted half as far apart
as had been customary in Puebla. Such an integration of knowledge of profes-
sional and farmer produced markedly better results than were possible when only
one source of knowledge was used.
FRUITS OF INTEGRATING PEASANT KNOWLEDGE
The advantages of integrating indigenous knowledge and practices with
research findings proved to be enormous, as CIMMYT's own report documents.
The report on research results four years into the project states (p. 28)
The studies of the maize-bean association demonstrated that
net income from the association was approximately double
that obtained with either maize or beans alone.
A year later, summarizing research results for 1972, the report states (p. 29)
Bean production increased remarkably when ten ton/ha of
chicken manure was added to the treatment (of other recom-
mended fertilizers)..... The common maize-boon association,
fertilized with nitrogen and phosphorous, produced 59% more
lysinethandid opague maize alone. The common maize-bean
association, fertilized with nitrogen, phosphorous, and
chicken manure, produced 2.39 times as much lysine as
opaque maize alone.'
It was not until 1973 that CIMMYT offered farmers recommendations which
"now included packages of production practices for the maize-pole bean associa-
tion as a result of research conducted during 1970-72"' (p. 52). Furthermore,
it was not until 1973 that CIMMYT adapted its organizational strategy to this
combination, the Union of Progressive Maize and Bean Farmers of Zone III
being formed in August of that year. These facts suggest that if CIMMYT had
begun to study the actual farming practices in Puebla with the beginning of the
project in 1967, project recommendations for the associated cropping of maize
and beans could have been ready three years earlier. In all probability, this
would have resulted not only in a gain in time but also in the level of accep-
tance of CIMMYT recommendations by the farmers, who had naturally tended to
discount even the valid recommendations of CIMMYT because some of them had
learned from experience that they could do better with their own customary
The report states (p. 81)
Clearly, the job of adjusting and delivering adequate tech-
nology, as well as that of inducing farmers to use the
recommended technology is very difficult, and is far from
being accomplished in the Puebla area.
The results reported by CIMMYT itself make it clear that the job would
have been much easier to accomplish if the planners had recognized at the outset
that the problem was not simply one of "adjusting and delivering adequate
technology" and "of inducing farmers lo use the recommended technology" but
1. Lysine is an amino acid which is present in only very small quantities in
ordinary maize. The great increase in lysine in the new opaque-2 corn makes
of a staple food product which was highly deficient in utilizable protein
a well balanced food capable of sustaining human life without any other food.
rather depended upon a creative Integration of the results of research with
the most effective agricultural practices prevailing among Puebla farmers.
THE SOCIAL LESSONS OF PROJECT PUEBLA
The CIMMYT report contains many interesting practical conclusions
regarding problems of farmer organization and of the delivery of services.
Since those are well stated and documented in the report, I shall not deal
with them here.
My concern is with social lessons which can be drawn from the Project
but which are not brought out with sufficient clarity in the published
The Puebla Project provides important evidence regarding the limita-
tions as well as the potentialities of the crop specialization style of
research carried out by CIMMYT and other international agricultural research
Institutes. While we agree that specializing research on a very small number
of commodities is the best strategy for yielding the genetic advances
embodied In the high yielding varieties of the green revolution, this
strategy has important limitations particularly as it is applied to the
problems of small farmers in developing nations. As the report makes
clear (p. 15), leaders of CIMMYT came to recognize such limitations:
CIMMYT decided in early 1972 to terminate its participation
in the Puebla Project at the end of 1973. The project had
begun in 1967 as an experiment to learn how to rapidly increase
maize production among small, low income farmers. As the
project evolved, however, it became clear that the Project's
objectives would shift to more efficient strategies for in-
creasing production, net Income, and the general welfare of
small farmers in rain fed areas. CIMMYT felt that its man-
date was not broad enough to encompass all the activities that
clearly should be Incorporated in so extensive an undertaking.
This position was made known to the Governor of Puebla and the
Secretary of Agriculture, making clear CIMMYT's reasons for
withdrawing support, as well as the conviction that the project
At this writing, the continuation of the Puebla Project has been
assigned to the Mexican National Agricultural University at Chapingo,
and, with strong backing from the Ministry of Agriculture, the new program
is undertaking to extend the lessons learned at Puebla to all of Mexico's
rain-fed agricultural areas. While the project promises to make a major
impact upon the development of agriculture in a large part of Mexico, it is
important to recognize that the Puebla lessons that leaders of the expanded
program are now seeking to apply are different in important respects from the
lessons that CIMMYT planners expected to teach with their original research
The Puebla experience also raises questions about the ability of
international research organizations such as CIMMYT to contribute to
national agricultural research and development programs. According to
the official rationale of leaders of such international centers, they
expect to serve the needs of world agriculture by working with and through
national agricultural programs, rather than by working directly with the
To strengthen national programs, the international center provides
not only information and materials (such as seeds of the new high yielding
varieties) but also extensive training of research and extension professionals
from developing nations and consultation with government and university
people regarding the establishment and development of national programs
in agricultural research.
While the leaders of such international centers are highly qualified
to advise national agricultural planners on what it takes to build a high
quality research program, the Puebla experience Indicates that the building
of a research and development program is beyond the boundaries of their
mission. They assume that the linking of research to development is the
responsibility of the national program, and yet very few national programs
have as yet demonstrated any competence in creating such effective linkages.
Furthermore, there is a danger that the well deserved prestige of the
international centers will lead planners in developing countries to imitate
that model in building their national programs. If they follow that road,
they may reach high research standards in highly specialized research on
particular crops without making any progress in linking that research to
This does not mean that the present international centers should
seek to fill the gap cited here through developing their own research and
consulting program focused upon the human and organizational problems of
agricultural development. I am inclined to agree with what CIMMYT Deputy
Director Keith Finlay said to me: "Just because somebody can point out an
important need that is not being met by anybody else does not persuade me
that CIMMYT should undertake to meet that need."
While there is much to be said for this interpretation of the CIMMYT
mission, it Is important to recognize that, even as we add together the
international centers and national programs, we are left with important
gaps that are holding back progress in food production and distribu ion.
The chief gap is most simply expressed in the linkage indicated in the under-
lined word in the following phrase: research and development. If the inter-
national centers are not about to fill this gap, can national programs
demonstrate how It Is to be done?
We should recognize that the importance of Integrating farmer/knowledge
is not simply the inspiration of the present writer. I grasped what seems
to me the most important social lesson of Puebla when Mauro Gomez (Project
Director 1970-73) told me flatly that Project leaders only began to realize
the potentials of the project when they recognized the necessity of studying
the agricultural practices of the small farmers and then eventually arriving
at a fruitful integration of the results of research in the plant sciences
with the most effective agricultural practices prevailing among small farmers
in Puebla. This was clearly no news to Heliodoro Diaz (Project Director
1970) who joined us in this conversation. In an informal seminar at Chapingo,
when I presented the same conclusion, it obviously came as no surprise to
Leobardo Jimenez Sanchez (Project Director 1967-70).
This situation presents us with an interesting paradox in the Sociology
of Science. If the project directors had already learned the major lesson
I am reporting here long before they explained it to me, why was this lesson
not clearly stated in the project report in whose writing both Jimenez
and Diaz participated?
One possible interpretation is that the writers were inhibited because
it might embarrass CIMMYT to acknowledge that the professionals were only
able to make satisfactory progress when they realized the necessity of
learning from the peasants. While such an explanation is plausible, it
does not accord with my impressions of the frankness and openness of both the
North Americans and Mexicans associated with CIMMYT and the Puebla Project.
Furthermore, since this conclusion seems to me an important advance in theory
and practice, it should hardly be embarrassing to CIMMYT to report that
It had overcome initial errors to gain important new knowledge.
It seems to me that the problem involves the theoretical framework
In which to place information. A conclusion only assumes its proper signifi-
cance when placed in a theoretical context. While I cannot speak with author-
ity on these matters I have the impression that the writers systematically
fitted their voluminous data into the theoretical frameworks provided by
the disciplines of agronomy and agricultural economics. The conclusions
reached, therefore, did not simply stand by themselves but rather assumed
broader significance in the context of an established theoretical framework.
For the analysis of behavior and organizations, no such generally accepted
theoretical frameworks yet exist. To present their own theoretical framework
in behavioral science terms would have required much more space for exposi-
tion and explanation than was necessary for the commonly accepted frameworks
In agronomy and agricultural economics, and this kind of emphasis might
well have seemed out of place in a publication of an institution dedicated
to the improvement of wheat and maize.
REFORMULATING R & D STRATEGY
The Puebla case indicates that tradition and habit may be present in
the professional man or scientist as well as in the peasant. Why did the
professionals of Project Puebla at first insist that good practice required
leaving open space between the rows of corn? When I used this case in my
teaching, several :students misunderstood the point and thought that the
professionals were trying to persuade the Puebla farmers to use tractors.
Of course, this was not the case. The professionals were sufficiently
familiar with the problems and conditions of farming in Puebla to know that
a recommendation for the use of tractors by small farmers made no sense.
The point here is a more subtle one: the professionals failed to reckon
with the mutual dependence of the various parts of a farm management system.
In the farm management system of the corn farmers of Iowa, the empty
spaces between the rows of corn were required for efficient utilization of
the tractor. In turn, the tractor made rational economic sense under the
the prevailing conditions of Iowa farmers: large land holdings, relatively
large financial resources, low fuel costs, high labor costs, and a scarcity
of farm labor in relation to the large expanses of land under cultivation.
As Schumacher (1973) points out, in the long run the rationality of that whole
system must be questioned because of its heavy reliance upon now high priced
fossil fuel, which is bound to be exhausted early in the next century.
The point is important but beyond the scope of the present paper.
In Puebla, conditions for small farmers were drastically different:
small properties, scarce financial resources, and an abundance of labor (of
the family) in relation to the land under cultivation. Under this combination
of conditions, the more successful small farmers recognized that they had to
make the most intensive use of their small plots that was possible. It
was irrational to leave any large amount of space between the rows of corn -
particularly when the pole beans could climb on the corn stalks.
The point is that the recommendation regarding empty spaces between
corn rows was simply based upon habit and tradition among those who were
accustomed to thinking of good farm practices in terms of the most successful
farmers in the United States. The same conclusion can be drawn from the
failure of Project Puebla to include chicken manure in any of its early
recommendations. It simply was not customary for Iowa corn farmers to use
This conclusion suggests the importance of a reformulation of our
Ideas regarding the process of research and development in agriculture.
We are dealing here with ways of thinking about problems. If an existing
pattern of thinking is basically unsound, improvements in research are not
to be made with minor tinkering, but must involve a re-examination of
the pre-existing pattern and a basic reformulation. ;We need to deal first
with problem definition and underlying assumptions because they will
necessarily shape the research design. The problem definition of the
Puebla Project is clearly stated in the published report in the following
two points: I) "adjusting and delivering adequate technology" and 2)
"inducing farmers to use the recommended technology." The basic assumption
underlying this strategy, in the words of Gomez, was that "the small farmers
did not know anything." This is a statement of what I have called "the
myth of the passive peasant" (Whyte, 1975).
If you put together the problem definition quoted above with the
assumption stated by Gomez, then everything else in the planning for the
first several years of the Puebla Project naturally follows. The planners
assumed that they knew in principle what adequate technology was but had
to do some local research on conditions of soil, rainfall, etc. to learn
how to adjust this technology to Puebla. The planners recognized that
there would be problems in delivering this adequate-technology to the
farmers and therefore included in their plans some research and action on
the delivery system. The problem definition and the assumptions allowed
no room for research on the existing agricultural practices of the small
farmers of Puebla. Surveys were done to provide estimates of the acreage
devoted to corn, beans, and other crops, the size of land holdings, etc.,
but it did not occur to anyone until at least two years into the project
that the more successful among the farmers might have evolved a technology
that merited careful study.
A new design for research and development projects should provide a
sharp contrast to the strategy and policies of Puebla. The new strategy
begins by defining the problem as one of integrating knowledge gained by
agricultural researchers in their laboratories and field plots with know-
ledge gained by the more successful small farmers through their years of
practical experience. The underlying assumption here is the opposite of
that involved in "the myth of the passive peasant." We assume that profes-
sionals can be just as much influenced by traditions and habits as the
peasants and that, while the peasants do not know everything that would be
useful for them to know, they do have a solid base of knowledge gained
from experience and are no more resistant to change than the agricultural
This combination of problem definition and underlying assumptions
dictates a research design in which intervention is preceded by field
research in the local area, giving major attention to the agricultural
practices of the farmers with a view to learning about more and less effec-
tive native farming systems. Note that this strategy contrasts not only,
with that generally followed by plant scientists but also with that often
recommended by anthropologists and sociologists. In the past behavioral
scientists have seen the need for local area research primarily in terms of
learning about the social structure and culture of the community. We have
been Inclined unconsciously to assume that traditional agricultural prac-
tices were necessarily inferior to what would be recommended by the techni-
cally trained change agent, so we too have fallen into the trap of assuming
that the problem was one of helping the change agent to overcome "resistance
In this new approach, we would assume that the agricultural professional
may indeed have much of practical value to contribute to the farmers but
that the potential value of his contribution can only be achieved if profes-
sionals and farmers work together to integrate their diverse sources of
The Puebla Project: Seven Years of Experience, 1967-1974.
El Bataan, Mexico.
1973 Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered.
New York: Harper and Row.
Whyte, W. F.
1975 Organizing for Agricultural Development. New Brunswick,
N.J.: Transaction Books, Inc.