Curry Helen Anne
School of History and Sociology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Plants People Planet. 2024 Sep;6(5):1024-1037. doi: 10.1002/ppp3.10414. Epub 2023 Aug 14.
Agricultural extension is recognized as an important pathway for generating changes in individual farmers' practices and therefore broader patterns of production. In the United States, historical research has implicated extension work in transformations that privileged White farmers and wealthier operations over other producers and that fostered the industrialization and consolidation of farms. This article examines the work of one early 20th-century extension agent and the demonstrations he used to teach farmers how to choose and keep corn seeds and to identify the best performing corn varieties for a particular location. This history can inform contemporary efforts to develop more socially and ecologically aware approaches to agricultural research, extension, and production by emphasizing the need for measures of success that align with community-level objectives and for larger institutional structures that support and sustain such goals.
The article examines the histories of agricultural extension and crop development in the early 20th-century United States. It discusses the role of farm demonstrations, including the participation of farmer-breeders, in the development of spread of higher yielding corn varieties in the Midwestern states in the 1910s and 1920s. It highlights the emphasis placed on finding locally or regionally appropriate varieties in some early corn extension activities and dwells on the irony that these locally specific endeavors played a role in the development of universalized solutions.The article examines and contextualizes an unusual archival document as an entry point into these histories: , a two-volume work prepared by Martin Luther Mosher (1882-1982). Mosher was the first county agricultural extension agent in the state of Iowa and worked in extension until his retirement in 1950.The article makes three main observations: (1) is best read as an agricultural demonstration; (2) is Mosher's attempt to grapple with the material legacies of his extension work in relation to the different agricultural life he idealized; and (3) Mosher's work exemplifies the complex relationships and expectations seen among breeders, seed companies, extension agents, and farmers in the early 20th-century United States.The article concludes that Mosher's work with open-pollinated corn varieties offers insight into the importance of agricultural extension as a means of crop development and highlights the contingent nature of agricultural industrialization.
农业推广被认为是促使个体农民的生产方式发生改变，进而推动更广泛生产模式变革的重要途径。在美国，历史研究表明，推广工作参与了一些变革，这些变革使白人农民和较富裕的农场经营相较于其他生产者更具优势，并推动了农场的工业化和合并。本文考察了一位20世纪初推广人员的工作以及他用来教导农民如何选择和保存玉米种子，以及如何确定特定地点表现最佳的玉米品种的示范活动。这段历史可以为当代努力提供借鉴，即通过强调需要与社区层面目标相一致的成功衡量标准，以及支持和维持此类目标的更大制度结构，来制定更具社会和生态意识的农业研究、推广及生产方法。
本文考察了20世纪初美国农业推广和作物发展的历史。它讨论了农场示范的作用，包括农民育种者的参与，在20世纪10年代和20年代中西部各州高产玉米品种的推广发展中所起的作用。它强调了在一些早期玉米推广活动中对寻找当地或区域适宜品种的重视，并详述了这些针对当地的具体努力在普遍化解决方案的发展中所起作用这一具有讽刺意味的现象。本文将一份不同寻常的档案文件作为切入点来考察和背景化这些历史：《[具体书名]》，这是马丁·路德·莫舍（1882 - 1982）编写的一部两卷本著作。莫舍是爱荷华州的首位县农业推广人员，一直从事推广工作直至1950年退休。本文提出了三点主要看法：（1）《[具体书名]》最好被视为一次农业示范；（2）《[具体书名]》是莫舍试图应对其推广工作的物质遗产与他所理想化的不同农业生活之间的关系；（3）莫舍的工作体现了20世纪初美国育种者、种子公司、推广人员和农民之间复杂的关系和期望。本文得出结论，莫舍对开放授粉玉米品种的研究工作有助于深入了解农业推广作为作物发展手段的重要性，并凸显了农业工业化的偶然性。
