"PRODUCE MORE TO LIVE BETTER": COTTON, CORN, AND AGRARIAN MODERNIZATION IN GUATEMALA, 1944-1966
Date
2017-10-30
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
0000-0001-9395-4433
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Doctoral
Abstract
This dissertation argues that the Guatemalan Revolution (1944-1954) was a transformational moment that hastened the adoption of modern, industrial agriculture throughout the country and facilitated the opening of new agrarian frontiers like the Pacific Coast. Between 1944 and 1954, technicians and bureaucrats adopted a new language for speaking about Guatemala’s economic problems that emphasized the links between dependency on coffee, rural poverty, and the threat of deforestation and soil erosion. Experts created rural development initiatives that were supposed to remake Guatemala into a more efficient agricultural producer. These efforts were challenged by landowners, labourers and campesinos who tried to define policy that best served their interests. While large landowners initially rebuffed modernization schemes, campesinos quickly adopted new agricultural technologies and pushed the state to experiment with financial and land reforms that were necessary for small farms to prosper. One of the important conclusions of this dissertation is that supposedly traditional campesinos were responsible for the success of agrarian modernization in Guatemala. The dissertation also explores the long-term social and environmental consequences of the 1952 agrarian reform. Historians have often depicted the agrarian reform as an isolated political event that created impressive, but short-lived improvements in the lives of campesinos. Using case studies from the Pacific Coast, the dissertation demonstrates that land use changed dramatically between 1952 and 1954. Thousands of campesinos obtained new land that they rapidly cleared and developed. At the same time, large landowners raced to deforest and colonize new land with annuals like cotton so that they could limit their exposure to expropriation. After the coup, Guatemalan elites rejected government efforts to redistribute land and restructure the economy. However, large landowners embraced the new productive technologies—fertilizers, pesticides, hybrid seeds and mechanization—introduced during the Revolution. On the Pacific Coast, large landowners replaced campesino farms with industrial crops including cotton, corn and sugar. This new agricultural model created wealth for a small elite but caused long-term environmental problems and impoverished Guatemala’s indigenous population.
Description
Keywords
Guatemala, Latin America, Environment, Indigenous, Agriculture, Peasants
Citation
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department
History
Program
History