Intravillage Wealth and Peasant Agricultural Innovation

Author(s): David L. Clawson

Source: The Journal of Developing Areas , Apr., 1978, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Apr., 1978), pp.
323-336
Published by: College of Business, Tennessee State University

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4190583

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 The Joumnal of Developing Areas 12 (April 1978): 32-336

Intravillage Wealth and Peasant

Agcultural Innovation

DAVID L. CLAWSON

The purposes of this paper are to consider the role of poverty as an

inhibitor of peasant agricultural innovation, to illustrate how inheritance
customs contribute to poverty in a peasant community, and to analyze
within the context of a culturally open peasant agricultural village the
cognitive and economic explanations of peasant receptivity to agricultural
innovation.'

Peasants and World Agricultural Production

As world population continues to grow, so does the need to increase world
food production. In spite of yield or nutritional advantages offered by
recently developed hybrid grains and associated technology, however, their
diffusion among the world's peasantry has been limited. Failure of peasants
to increase yields is regrettable because peasants comprise over half the
world's population and an even greater proportion of the agricultural labor
force. In Mexico, nearly half of the economically active are employed in
agriculture, of which two-thirds are peasant farmers who work one hectare
of land or less.2 In an era of concern for food yields and the welfare of the

Assistant Professor of Geography, University of New Orleans. Funding for the research upon
which this study was based was provided by a Fulbright-Hays Doctorl Dissertation Research
Abroad Fellowship, D.H.E.W., Grant no. OEG-0-74-3940. The author wishes to thank
Raymond E. Crist and the IDA referees for constructive criticism of earlier drafts, and the
Department of Geography, University of Georgia, for supporting the preparation of the final
version.

I The terms " open" and "closed" used throughout this study refer to the relative absence
(open) or presence (closed), within a village, of factors which contribute to the maintenance of
cultural-psychological barriers to innovation. They are not to be confused with economic
production characteristics, which formed a partial basis for Eric R. Wolfs earlier use of the
terms in his study "Types of Latin American Peasantry: A Preliminary Discussion," American
Anthropologist 57 (June 1955): 452-71. Nealtican fits none of Wolfs types, exhibiting highland
economic characteristics but lowland (open) receptivity to innovation.
2Kenneth Ruddle and Kathleen Barrows, eds., Statistcal Abstract of Latin America (Los
Angeles: University of California, Latin American Center, 1974), pp. 218-23.

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324 David L. Clawson

poorer nations, it is evident that one of the most desirable and urgently
needed means of increasing world food production is to increase peasant
agricultural productivity.
A peasant is a semisubsistent agriculturalist who lives in the rural
countryside while maintaining an economic, political, and moral symbiosis
with a nearby market community and the state.3 The distinguishing
econoric quality of the peasant is his relationship with the adjacent market
town or city. With the cash he receives from the sale of any agricultural
surplus, the peasant purchases those goods and services which he considers
necessary and which he cannot provide for himself. These frequently
include medical care, articles of clothing, manufactured agricultural
implements, schooling for his children, home furnishings and appliances,
and certain food and drinks. The peasant and the urban dweller are
consequently mutually dependent upon one another. The urbanite relies
either partially or completely upon the peasant for his food needs. The
peasant, in turn, depends heavily upon the urban dweller for numerous
goods and services. This relationship results in peasant economies having a
large subsistence sector and a relatively small cash sector. It is this unique
economic position, not the size of the farmer's holdings per se, which
distinguishes the peasant from the purely subsistence farner, who has no
regular economic dealings with the urban world, and from the commercial
farmer, whose primary purpose is to produce for commercial transactions
rather than for his own consumption.

Peasants Are Poor Innovators

Recent explanations of peasant conservatism and reluctance to innovate
can be grouped into two general viewpoints. One interpretation, advanced
principally by Foster and Erasmus, holds that the scarcity of peasant
resources leads to the development of societal attitudes which restrict
individual initiative. Foster's model, entitled the "Image of Limited Good,"
theorized that, in the mind of the peasant, all things desirable in life exist in
finite, not infinite quantities:
By "Image of Limited Good" I mean that broad areas of peasant behavior are patterned in such
fashion as to suggest that peasants view their social, economic and natural universes-their total
environment-as one in which all the desired things of life such as land, wealth, health,
friendship and love, manliness and honor, respect and status, power and influence, security and
safety, exist in finite quantity and are always in short supply, as far as the peasant is concemed.
Not only do these and all other "good things" exist in finite and limited quantities, but in
addition there is no way directly within peasant power to increase the available quantities.
[italics in original]4

As a consequence:
in peasant societies and among other underprivileged peoples, innovative people tend to he
seen as rapacious and greedy. Because they are upsetting the traditional distribution of "good,"

For scholarly descriptions of peasants, see Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris, "A Typolog)
of Latin American Subcultures,' American Anthropologist 57 (June 1955): 428-51; George
Foster, Traditional Societies and Technological Change, Ed ed. (New York: Harper and Row,
1973), pp. 30-31; and Robert Redfield, The Primitive World and Its Transformations (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1957), p. 31.

4 George Foster, "Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good," American Anthropologist
67 (April 1965): 296. For Foster's complete discussion of the Image of Limited Good, see his
Tzintzuntzan (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), pp. 122-52.

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 IntraviLLage Wealth and Peasant Agricultural Innovation 325

of the limited resources of the group, they are viewed as threats to community stability rather
than as entrepreneurial models to be emulated.5

Foster claimed that, in addition to discouraging economic innovation, the

peasant image also inhibits development of local leadership and permits the
display of wealth only in a ritual context.8
While insisting that the image accurately describes all peasant societies,
Foster did not claim that all peasants are dominated by it. Once a few
innovative peasants cross the threshold of modernity, an increasing number
of followers do likewise, and "in time the limited-good premise will lose
most or all of its inhibiting power."7 This does not alter Foster's assumption,
however, "that the social, psychological, and cultural parameters Witin
which peasants work are so tight as to exclude all possibility of large
numbers of peasants maneuvering themselves into more favorable economic
circumstances."8
Charles Erasmus's cognition model also supported the hypothesis that
peasant society is, by nature, intrinsically noninnovative. Peasant society is
held to be in a closed stage of development in which man's limited
knowledge of his environment restricts his control of it and of his own
destiny. Owing to the limited availability of goods, the accumulation of
wealth is socially unacceptable. Innovation and individual achievement are
strongly discouraged. In order to enforce this standard, peasants exercise
"invidious sanction," permitting wealth to be displayed only through the
process of "conspicuous giving." Religious and political rituals and positions
act as leveling mechanisms, reducing differences between the wealthy and
the poor.9
The change away from the closed toward an open developmental stage is
initiated through improved exchange and the resultant greater variety and
availability of goods. This induces occupational specialization, which in turn
increases man's cognitive capacity and his ability to control the passive
physical and cultural environments. With increased wealth, conspicuous
giving is replaced by conspicuous ownership as the principal means of
prestige achievement, and invidious sanction succumbs to invidious
emulation as the public display of goods becomes an important concern to
the members of society.'0 In this transitional stage, the inherently
noninnovative character of society is altered as individuals compete for the
accumulation of wealth. It is evident, however, that when this point of
theoretical development is reached, society has been transformed to the
extent where it is no longer peasant in nature, occupational specialization
having significantly altered in many the unique peasant-urban market
relationship.

5 George Foster, Applied Anthropology (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), p. 83.

6 Foster, Traditional Societies, pp. 36-38.
7 Ibid., p. 39; Foster, Applied Anthropology, pp. 83-84.
8 James Acheson, "New Directions in Economic Anthropology? A Comment on Kunkel,"
American Anthropologist 78 (June 1976): 331.

" Charles Erasmus, Man Takes Control (Minneapolis: Universit) of Minnesota Press, 1961),
pp. 113-20.

I? Ibid., p. 157.

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32 David L Clawson

Numerous other scholars have found peasant society to beinherently

noninnovative. Lewis determned that the society of Tepoztlan is not
competitive: "Accordingly, a lack of strong drive and ambition for self-
improvement and a lack of initiative and originality are notable."'" Hogbin
found that "the concept of progress is in primitive societies unknown."''2
Finally, Ingham concluded that in rural Mexican folk culture, life is
considered to be a zero-sum game in which wealti and other good things are
in such limited supply that expansion in one area inevitably results in a
reduction in another.'3

Peasants Are Good Innovators

The viewpoint that peasant society is, by nature, intrinsically innovative
has been supported by scholars who view peasants as essentially economic
men, willing and able to respond to the presence and absence of economic
opportunity. Advocates of this position have included Schultz, Mellor,
Wharton, and Acheson, who in 1972 published the results of his study of a
Tarascan vilage.'4 Acheson found that blocks to development were
primarily economic in nature, rather than cultural or cognitive. Such factors
as a lack of needed skills and ready capital constituted, in Acheson's opinion,
the true obstacles to development: "The presence of superior economic
opportunities is the single most important factor involved in developmental
change. Conversely, lack of positive economic change can be primarily
traced to the absence of these opportunities."'5
Other studies have also supported the hypothesis that peasants are good
potential innovators. Huizer, in disputing Foster's and Erasmus's
explanations of Latin American peasant conservatism, placed the blame for
the absence of peasant initiative on an outwardly imposed "culture of
repression," and stated that once the repression is removed, peasants
become militant and ready to accept change.-' Crist and Nissly found that
physical and economic barriers are the principal blocks to peasant
innovation and cited such factors as roads, markets, lands, tiUes, level of
living, size of landholdings, and the availability of technical advice and
credit. 17

11 Oscar Lewis, Life in a Mexican Village: Tepoztlan Restudied (Urbana: University of

Illinois Press, 1951), p. 300.

12 H. Ian Hogbin, Social Change (London: A. C. Watts,1958), p. 78.

3 John Ingham, "On Mexican Folk Medicine," American Anthropologist 72 (February 1970):
78.

14 Theodore Schultz, Transforming Traditional Agnculture (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 1964); John Mellor, The Economics of Agricdtural Development (Ithaca, NY: Cornel
University Press, 1966); Clifton Wharton, Jr., "Risk, Uncertainty, and the Subsistence Farmer,"
in Economic Development and Social Change, ed. George Dalton (Garden City, NY: Natural
History Press, 1971), pp. 566-74; and James Acheson, "Limited Good or Limited Goods?
Response to Economic Opportunity in a Tarascan Pueblo," American Anthropologist 74
(October 1972): 1152-69.

5 Acheson, "Limited Good or Limited Goods?" p. 1161.

'8 Gerrit Huizer, " 'Resistance to Change' and Radical Peasant Mobilization: Fos-ter and
Erasmus Reconsidered," Human Organization 29 (Winter 1970): 303.

17 Raymond E. Crist and Charles M. Nissly, East from the Andes (Gainesville: U niversity of
Florida Press, 1973), pp. 161-63.

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 Intravillage Wealth and Peasant Agricultural Innovation 327

A Possible Reconciliation
Supporters of both the cognitive and the economic viewpoints of peasant
behavior may have overlooked the interrelationships between the two,
which are not mutually exclusive. Cancian, noting that there are no purely
economic- or tradition-bound men, has called the debate a "bogus" issue:
"Economic man always operates within a cultural framework logically prior
to his existence as economic man. . . . This cultural framework defines the
values in terms of which he economizes.",18
Granting the accuracy of Cancian's statement, it is nevertheless true that
the economic behavior of different groups of peasants exhibits widely
varying degrees of cognitive influence. Kunkel has observed that "the
theoretically important questions raised by the debate concern the
operations and relative magnitudes of these factors" (italics added).19 He
then noted that studies of peasant reaction to economic opportunity involve
two assumptions: first, that the major determinants of a behavior are its
anticipated consequences, and second, that peasants enjoy considerable
behavioral and attitudinal flexibility.20 Studies favoring economic
explanations assume that peasant behavior is malleable and easily changed
in response to perceived economic opportunities. Cognitive or
psychological explanations imply that internal stresses do not permit
peasants to base their behavior upon economic considerations.
Consequently, Kunkel hypothesized:

In villages where the social context is benign (in the sense of not attaching negative outcomes to
innovation), economic factors will probably be the major components of opportunity, while in
communities that are culturally closed economic factors are likely to play a minor role in the
determination of risks people take into account. Evidently both economic and cultural factors
contribute to anticipated outcomes, but their proportions and weights depend on the
characteristics of a village and its circumstances. Hence the question is not so much whose
position is correct but rather under which conditions Acheson's and Foster's explanations
prevail.21

It is further evident that peasant behavior toward perceived opportunity

can change from cognitive to economic as the village evolves from a
culturally closed to a culturaly open society.

The Physical and Cultural Setting

In an effort to determine the extent to and conditions under which
cognitive forces exist as a constraint to peasant agricultural innovation, the
author carried out field research from September 1974 to May 1975 in
Nealtican, Puebla, Mexico. Nealtican is a peasant village and municipio
located at an average elevation of 2,350 meters (m) in the Puebla Valley at
the eastern base of the volcano Popocatepeti (fig. 1).

18 Frank Cancian, Change and Uncertainty in a Peasant Economy (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1972), p. 191.

"9 John Kunkel, "Opportunity, Economics, and Behavior: A Comment on Acheson and
Foster," American Anthropologist 78 (June 1976): 327.
20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., p. 330.

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328 David L. Clawson

93030' 98020'

Gulf of

Fig. 1. Nealtican and Surrounding Region.

The first impression the village makes on a visitor is its completely

agrarian atmosphere, which in Latin America is unusual in a community of
7,000 population. Except for a federally owned and operated grade school,
the village is almost totally devoid of urban functions. There are no
restaurants, movie theaters, supermarkets, service stations, or hotels. There
is almost no occupational stratification in the village. With the exception of
one full-time ironsmith-welder, all are peasant farmers, or icampesinos, who
maintain the traditional urban-peasant market relationship in the nearby
towns of Cholula and Atlixco. Owing to historical development, there are no
government-controlled cooperative ejidos in the municipio. In contrast to
the situation in most of the surrounding villages, the Nealtican peasants own
their land in fee simple, and are free to utilize it as they see fit.22
Life revolves around the agricultural cycle, which is inextricably
interwoven with the physical environment. The valley has mild winters and

22 There are four systems of land tenure operative in the village. The most common is the
pequena propiedad, or small private holding, which is acquired either as an inheritance or
through purchase. In 1974-75, 93.5 percent of the land farmed was pequena propiedad, of
which 72.5 percent was obtained by inheritance and 27.5 percent was purchased.
Sharecropping, which requires a 50 percent share from the farmer, was practiced on 2.9
of the land. Rented land accounted for 0.7 percent, and empeno, or land held as loan collateral,
comprised 2.9 percent of the land.

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 Intraviliage Wealth and Peasant Agricultural Innovation 329

cool summers and receives 93 percent of its annual 889 mm of precipitation

during the growing season of April to October. Only occasional summer
winds and a rare late spring or early autumn frost pose dangers to crops. The
soil consists of sandy volcanic ash of low fertility, the nutrients having been
washed out by heavy summer rains and depleted through centuries of maize
cultivation. If farm labor is timed properly to correspond to the annual
moisture cycle, and if fertilizer is applied in correct amounts, an adequate
harvest is almost assured.

TABLE 1
EVOLUTION FROM A CLOSED TO A CULTURALLY OP
PEASANT SOCIEY, NEALTICAN, MEXOO
(Percentage)

CATEGORY 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970

Non-Catholic .... 3.2 0.4 6.7 8.2

Marriage
Civil only 8.6 10.9 12.9 24.7 25.6
Religious or
religious and civil 86.4 80.3 80.0 66.2 61.5
Common law 5.0 8.8 7.1 9.1 12.8

Literate 22.0 25.0 39.0 53.0 67.0

Footwear
Barefoot .... 62.0 70.0 65.0 54.0
Sandals or huraches .... 37.0 28.0 31.0 19.0
Shoes .... 1.0 2.0 4.0 27.0

Language
Speak Spanish 42.1 98.2 .... 93.0 90.5
Speak only Indian 57.9 1.8 .... 7.0 9.5
SOURCE: SeXto Censo de Poblocion, 1940, Puebla: pp. 194-96, 201-2, 220, 223; Septimo
Censo General de Pobkwion, 1950, State of Puebla, pp. 133, 143, 153, 281, 316 0ctavo Censo
General de Poblacion, 1960, State of Puebla, vol. 1, pp. 389, 513, 527, 556; voi. 2, pp. 1527,
1536; Noveno Censo General de Pobklion, 1970, State of Puebla, vol. 22, pp. 197, 206,
215, 288, 306. All (Mexico City: Direccion General de Estadistica).

Since 1920, the year Nealtican achieved municipio status, the village has
evolved from a culturally closed to a culturally open peasant society. This
transformation is evident from changing language, footwear, marriage, and
religious patterns (table 1). The latter include both a steadily increasing non-
Catholic sector and a consistent decline in religious participation among the
village's nominal Catholics. The irregularly held Masses attract an average of
only 15 worshippers, godfather obligations have been reduced, and the
formerly strong carguero, or lay religious hierarchy, system has experienced
a major breakdown. Neither the 90 percent of the adult male Catholics who
decline holding a major cargo during their lifetimes, nor the Protestants or

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330 David L. Clawson

other non-Catholics are subject to serious social criticism or ostracism.23

Each villager is free to base occupational decisions upon economic merit
with minimal concern for social sanctions.

Historical Basis of Poverty

Prior to the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the villagers lived in virtual
slavery, functioning as landless laborers on three large haciendas. By the
mid-1930s, all the lands had been sold to the villagers. Wealth differences
within the community were set in motion by unequal land acquisitions
ranging from 240 hectares (ha) down to tracts of less than 10 hectares.
The poverty of the village can be traced to three interrelated phenomena:
the limited amount of arable land in the municipio, local inheritance
customs, and population growth. Added to this is the traditional peasant
desire to remain in the village as farmers which, up through the current
generation, has been realized by subdividing the plots. The municipio,
which is one of the smallest in the state of Puebla, consists of only 62.5 square
kilometers. Furthermore, much of the land is not level enough, nor possessed
of sufficient topsoil, for cultivation. Local inheritance customs call for all
descendants of an individual to inherit equal sharesY4 Prior to 1940 the death
rate was sufficiently high to hold the population to around 2,000, but since
1940 the population has more than tripled. In 1975 it was estimated that half
the villagers were less than 15 years of age. The present size of landholdings
is thus a product of the amount of land originally obtained, the number of
living heirs in succeeding generations, and the frugality, industry,
shrewdness, and good fortune of the property owners.
The average holding is now down to 1.2 hectares, usually divided into 2
separate noncontiguous plots. A wide range in the amount of land farmed
characterizes the village. In the summer of 1974, 46.1 percent of the farrners
worked one-half hectare of land or less, 25.2 percent worked between 0.51
and 1.0 hectare, 18.1 percent farmed between 1.01 and 2.0 hectares, and 10.6
percent had holdings larger than 2.0 hectares. To a Nealtican peasant these
figures reflect a wealth spectrum which constitutes the difference between a
bare marginal subsistence and a life of relative abundance.
Subsisting on 1.0 Hectare
Most peasants plant about half of their land in maize and the other half in
beans. In a good year a typical family working one hectare will have only 32
kilos of corn and 530 kilos of beans available for sale after feeding itself. The
net value of these products in 1974-75, after deducting production expenses,
amounted to 1,698 Mexican pesos, or US $135.84 (table 2). The peasant must
endeavor to stretch this meager amount to cover family cash expenses
throughout the year. This must be accomplished in a national economy

23The familiar argument that in peasant society redistribution of wealth occurs through the
medium of rituals is not substantiated in Nealtican. The fact that 90 percent of the adult male
Catholics decline to hold a cargo indicates that redistribution of wealth is having a major impact
on less than 10 percent of the population (since over 8 percent are not Catholic anyway).
Furthermore, acceptance of cargos is predicated upon religious conviction, not financial
security, and a good portion of the wealth that is redistributed through the cargo system moves
from the poor to the wealthier, thereby increasing rather than decreasing wealth differences.
24 This is the bilateral inheritance pattern discussed by Hugo C. Nutini in San Bernadino
Contla: Marriage and Family Structure in a Tlaxcalan Municipio (Pittsburgh, PA: Llniversit) of
Pittsburgh Press, 1968).

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 Intravillage Wealth and Peasant Agricultural Innovation 331

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332 David L. Clawson

which, according to most informed observers, has averaged near 30 percent

inflation annually for the last 4 years, and which resulted in the following
1974-75 local prices for farm items (all figures are in US dollars): one-half
hectare of good, potentially irrigable land, $ 4,800; one-half hectare of poor
farming land, $1,200; a new animal-drawn cart, $400;a team of 2 good mules,
$640; a good donkey, $ 56; a two-sided steel-tipped plow. $56; and a wooden
plow, $16. Thus, in a good year, a peasant with average landholdings barely
meets expenses; little or nothing remains for savings, emergencies, or the
purchase of major items. Those peasants working less than one hectare must
tighten their belts and endeavor to obtain supplemental income by hiring
themselves out as laborers (jomaleros) to the wealthy farmers at an average
wage of 30 pesos daily. In addition, many pursue a variety of secondary
occupations such as charcoal maker, mason, corner storekeeper, or traveling
merchant for daily returns normally under 25 pesos. These businesses are
saturated and underemployment is widespread.

Existing on More than 1.0 Hectare

Because the harvest of corn and beans from one hectare is normally
sufficient to feed the average family, the profit from sales of the produce of
additional hectares increases dramatically.
One-half hectare of corn and one-half hectare of beans require an average
of 84 man-days of labor annually. Thus, allowing time for Sundays, fiesta
days, and illness, an industrious peasant can work approximately three
hectares yearly without having to hire outside help. By eliminating loss
through family consumption and by avoiding hired labor, the profit on each
of the second and third hectares, assuming them to be planted equally in
corn and beans, amounts to 6,375 pesos, or US$510 per hectare (table 2).
Additional land requires hired labor at a cost of 3,040 pesos per hectare and
thus yields a net profit of only 3,335 pesos, or US$266.80 per hectare (table
2).
Great wealth differences thus exist within Nealtican. A peasant who
works one-half hectare of land must struggle to sustain life. His neigh-
bor who works one hectare is "middle class" and can be expected to eat
well but never to get ahead. Within the upper economic class, those who
work two hectares or more, profit can be expected to range from 8,073
pesos (US$645.84) for a peasant who works two hectares, to 14,448
pesos (US$1,155.84) for one who farms three hectares, to 44,463 pesos
(US$3,557.04) for one who operates 12 hectares.25

25 Throughout the study I purposely present an emic, or local, rather than at etic, or formal,
accounting procedure, in order to represent the fiscal world as the Nealtican peasant p)erceives
it. The Nealtican family, like all peasants generally, "does not carry on cost-accounting. It does
not know how much its labor is worth. Labor is not a commodity for it; it does not sell labor
within the family." (Wolf, 'Types of Latin American Peasantry: A Preliminary Discussion," l).
549). An etic account would use the cost of all labor, both personal and hired, in all cases. tUnder
such a procedure, the value of personal labor, 1,430 pesos per half hectare of corn and 1,610
pesos per half hectare of beans, would be imputed, thereby resulting in the first hectare show ing
a 1,342 peso net loss (compared to the worker's earning potential elsewhere) and reduicing the
net value of the second and third hectares to 3,335 pesos each, or the same real profit achieved
by those planting a fourth or additional hectare. Thus, in reality, profit for the first, second, and
third hectares is even lower than shown in table 2 and the income gap between the rich and
poor peasants consequently greater.

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 Intravillage Wealth and Peasant Agricultural Innovation 333

Inheritance-Two Examples
Two cases illustrate the effect of equal inheritance customs upon farm
size, wealth, and propensity to innovate agriculturally. The first is that of
Juan Luna, age 33, who with 12 hectares is the second largest landowner in
the mun*ipio. Juan's great-grandfather obtained about 240 hectares shortly
before 1900 when the owners of two of the haciendas began to sell out. Of
this large original holding Juan's three children will inherit four hectares
each. Juan and his children owe much of the credit for their relative wealth
to having belonged to a family which has never had more than four heirs per
generation. At present, Juan is one of the most progressive of the villagers.
He rents a tractor to plow his land and has been active in numerous
agricultural extension projects within the village. He grows a wide range of
cash crops, including flowers and sumlmer squash, which he transports t
market by truck.
The second example, that of Carlos Torres, age 35, is much more
representative of the typical villager. His grandmother purchased only five
hectares of land from the hacendados, and had eight living heirs. Thus
Carlos received less than one hectare from his father, and Carlos's six young
children, having no reasonable hope of an inheritance large enough to
support a family, will most likely be forced to leave the village. Carlos
would very much like to plow his land with a tractor but points out that the
cost of 90 pesos per hectare is prohibitive. While equally desirous as Juan for
progress to come to the village, he has withheld participation in the
extension projects for fear of the new products resulting in crop failure. His
crops, which consist only of corn, beans, crab apples, and a few winter
squash which he feeds his horse, are almost entirely consumed by the family
with the small surplus being taken by bus to be sold in the Cholula or Atlixco
markets.

Wealth and the Acceptance of Agricultural Innovation

Data were collected on the size of individual peasant landholdings, the
universal gauge for judging wealth and economic class in the village, and on
the following variables, which were considered manifestations of peasant
agricultural innovation: (1) use of pesticides or insecticides; (2) use of
mechanized farm equipment; (3) cultivation of nonsubsistence crops; (4)
utilization of government-financed credit; and (5) participation in
cooperatives. Hybrid corn seed was introduced some years ago by
personnel of the Rockefeller-supported Plan Puebla program but, for
numerous reasons, was found by the villagers to be unacceptable and was
totally rejected.26 Because none of the peasants utilize the seed, it was not
possible to measure adoption differences between economic classes of the
community.
The author hypothesized that if no significant difference was found
between amount of land owned and adoption of the innovations listed
above, the existence within Nealtican's peasant society of cognitive
influences restrictive of agricultural innovation would be supported.

26 David Clawson and Don R. Ho y, "Nealtican: A Mexican Communit That Rejected the
Green Revolution," forthcoming in th 1980 volume of American Jouurn2lof Economics andI
Sociology.

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334 David L. Clawson

Conversely, significant differences in innovative activity between the land-

based economic classes of the community would support a conclusion that
level of wealth is at least a partial explanation of peasant receptivity to
agricultural innovation.
The innovation variables tested were not considered biased in favor of
peasants with large landholdings. The use of pesticides or insecticides on the
bean crop, for example, is mandatory for a respectable harvest, regardless of
the amount of land planted in the crop. Similarly, while there exists a
relatively wide range in the amount of land worked, even the poor cherish
the thought of exchanging the hard labor of animal-drawn plowing for the
ease of a tractor. Likewise, membership in a cooperative carried with it
attendant obligations to cooperate and contribute time, information, and
possibly money, yet offered no crop security and was not a naturally
attractive alternative to any economic subgroup.
A random sample of one-third (226 individuals) of the peasant heads-of-
households was taken. The peasants were then classified as poor (0.01-
1.0 ha), average (1.1-2.0 ha), and wealthy (more than 2.0 ha), and their
innovative activity compared by means of the chi-squared test. A null
hypothesis that no relationship existed between level of wealth and
innovative activity was tested and rejected for each variable (p = 0.001, table
3). It was concluded that Nealtican's culturally open society is not rendered
inherently noninnovative by a psychological, cognitive worldview, and that
a statistically significant correlation exists between level of wealth and
innovative agricultural activity in the village.
As Barnett has observed, "Freedom from biological necessity is essential
for the speculative mind. The threat of physical extinction, whether from
war, pestilence, or hunger, constrains the free flight of fancy."27 The poor
peasant lives, quite literally in many instances, on the brink of starvation. If
his crops fail, for whatever reason, he realizes that no person or institution is
likely to support him. Consequently, he cannot afford to risk planting a
nonsubsistence crop or to mortgage his future for credit or for membership
in a cooperative. The land-poor peasant of Nealtican, owing to his poverty,
is locked into the corn-bean culture, where innovation is neither practical nor
possible.
In contrast, the wealthy peasant can use one hectare to cultivate the
subsistence crops of corn and beans and then, freed from biological
necessity, can turn his attention to profit making, which is likely to motivate
him to experiment with innovative products and techniques. Among the
most remunerative innovations in Nealtican are the purchase of a truck and
the sinking of a well for irrigation. A well is particularly valuable because it
allows the winter cultivation of numerous drought-sensitive crops such as
cabbage, lettuce, and cauliflower, which cannot be dry farmed. More
importantly, it permits two harvests yearly on the same land and has the
effect of doubling the amount of land owned. Wells have the potential to
function as a temporary, partial check on the apparently inevitable out-
migration that awaits the village youth.

27 Homer Barnett, Innovation: The Basis of Culture Change (New York: McGraw-l lill, 19.53).
1). 82.

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 Intravillage Wealth and Peasant Agricultural Innovation 335

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336 David L. Clawson

Conclusions
The literature on innovation diffusion is diverse in both scope and
findings.28 Obviously, different types of people are capable of innovating
under varying circumstances. It has long been axiomatic to recognize that
industrialized societies are heterogeneous and that each societal subgroup
may respond differently to innovation. However, peasant and other
traditional societies have generally been regarded as homogeneous. Owing,
perhaps, to intercultural differences, scholars from the industrialized nations
have not recognized intracultural variation among the peasant societies they
studied.
Only recently has peasant heterogeneity been incorporated into
development theory.29 Cancian and DeWalt, in separate studies, concluded
that both the low and high peasant economic classes are more likely to
innovate than the peasant middle class.30 This study argues that the wealthy
peasant upper class is the most innovative in culturally open communities.
Additional studies are needed to determine which peasant subgroups are
more responsive to various forms of innovations under differing
circumstances.
A weakness of the cognitive explanations of peasant receptivity to
agricultural innovation is their failure to consider the wide range of
intravillage wealth. All peasants do not participate equally in peasant
culture. Level of wealth influences peasant land use and culture attributes. In
Nealtican, a culturally open peasant agricultural community, fatalism,
reflected in the reluctance to innovate among poor peasants, does not appear
to be a product of an inherent societal characteristic, but rather is a frank
admission of economic reality, brought about in part by equal inheritance
customs. Wealthy peasants, owing to their material resources, can afford to
take risks and are anxious to innovate. Planners of Third World development
policies should consider the possibility that peasant willingness to innovate
might be a function of the level of peasant wealth, and that multiple
development strategies, based upon the economic and cultural
characteristics of each village subgroup, will likely result in increased
agricultural innovation.

28 The most comprehensive bibliography of innovation diffusion studies in Everett Rogers,

Communication of Innovation (New York: Free Press, 1971).

29 Allen Johnson, "Security and Risk-Taking Among Poor Peasants: A Brazilian Case," in
Studies in Econom*c Anthropology, ed. George Dalton (VW'ashington, D)C: Americani
Anthropological Association Anthropological Studies no. 7, 1971), plp. 143-50; Pertti Pelto and
Gretel Pelto, "Intra-cultural Diversity: Some Theoretical Issues," American Ethnologist 2
(February 1975): 1-18.

30 Cancian, Change and Uncertainty, pp. 156-57; Frank Cancian, "Stratification an(d llisk-
Taking: A Theory Tested on Agricultural Innovation," American Sociological Review 32
(December, 1967): 912-27; Billie DeWalt, "Inequalities in Wealth, Adoption of Technology, and
Production in a Mexican Ejido," American Ethnologist 2 (February 1975): 149-68.

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