The Agronomists’ Revolution: Agricultural Modernization in the Midst of the Brazilian Miracle

Brazilian policy-makers of various stripes confidently followed an industry-led development model in the 1950s, but that attitude shifted in the mid-1960s under the military government’s planners. A Ford Foundation-funded benchmark study of Brazilian agriculture noted in 1970 that Brazil was one of several nations in the process of “re-examining the potential contribution of agriculture to balanced development.” This paper traces the international linkages forged in the military regime’s process of recentering agriculture in the developmental project. Demonstrating continuities from early post-war efforts, it focuses on the USAID- and Ford-funded projects of the late 1960s and 1970s. The paper casts 1970 as a turning point. That year saw a significant expansion in degree-granting agriculture programs in Brazilian universities and a sharp acceleration in World Bank lending for agriculture. Before then, a measly six percent of Bank loans to Brazil had been directed toward agriculture. The 1973 foundation of EMBRAPA, an agency that quickly asserted its importance nationally, came in this context of expanded foreign aid. The networks of agronomists, agricultural economists, and other technical personnel who carried out this work took part in an aspect of Brazilian development that has received too little attention. At precisely the time of the country’s economic “miracle,” basic agricultural research underwent a revolution. This paper provides a sense of that revolution’s dynamics.