Asian Agricultural Technology Transfer:
Lessons from History?
Lindsay Falvey[1]
Chair of Agriculture, University of Melbourne 3010, Australia.
Abstract
To elicit lessons from history about agricultural technology transfer requires a very general overview and speculation. Using an opinionated approach, this paper suggests that Asian agriculture from pre-history through to the present may be interpreted to indicate three major conclusions. First, a common Asian heritage still allows an easy communication about the integrity of nature, which should facilitate agricultural technology transfer that is consistent with that integrated approach. Second, agricultural technology transfer is not primarily reliant of technology generation, is not historically valued for financial benefit alone, is not always beneficial in terms of the integrated natural-human environment, is not usually oriented to the major agricultural system of subsistence, and is not a one-way flow from more- to less-developed countries. And thirdly, technology transfer is best understood as a component of cultural transfer, whether it be across major global cultures or within a country where the process of cultural consolidation continues.
Introduction
In this paper, I present an argument for one perspective on technology transfer in Asia in order to seek lessons for the future. It is not a history of technology transfer–that task awaits our greater knowledge. All that we can do at this juncture is to review the past from our current worldviews, reflect on alternative interpretations of the available histories, and seek common elements that might assist those who come after us to develop a deeper understanding.
In order to approach this diverse subject, I begin with a consideration of definitions of technology transfer itself, and then move into some generalized comments on the history of agriculture, particularly in Asia across the three general periods of prehistory, recent millennia, and recent centuries.
The objective of this paper is to elicit macro-level lessons. It therefore avoids specific lessons of what has or has not worked in terms of technology transfer in order to focus on the large issues that we may consider in any of our future deliberations, which is a primary function of our reflections in agricultural history. So, I begin with some brief definitions.
What is technology transfer?
We once referred to the field of study that concerned itself with technology transfer as “extension.” While the term is long out of favor, we do well to remind ourselves of what extension was, and what it has become. In 1995, I spent considerable time reflecting on these matters and noted that the Land Grant College system of the USA, which expanded the earlier Scottish approach, is commonly viewed as a successful integration of extension with teaching and research. Extension personnel are staff of the university and are engaged in teaching or research in addition to extension activities. Such dual responsibilities of extension staff maintains linkages to research and teaching and enhances the relevance of all three areas. The definition of extension as a separate field in such systems can be an artificial construct as it may include distance education, short courses, farm demonstrations, personal advice, discussion groups, and public information services (Falvey, 1996). Extension was simply the extension of the education process beyond the classroom, usually within a culturally uniform area. This was the form that was first transferred to Asia with development projects.
Over time the model evolved and its educational forebear was forgotten such that our approach then became, as it still is now in many places, an institutionally separated model based on state or federally funded extension officers gathering information for farmer clients from research reports and researchers. The separation of these organizations from education institutions tends to preclude an educational element in advisory services, which might otherwise instil an ethic of continuing learning. While it appears to be effective in imparting information of commercial benefit to recipients, it does not optimize benefits of knowledge and behavioral change in noncommercial areas important to natural resource management (Falvey, 1996). Note here the terminology of the discipline was incorporating a psychological element as we sought to understand more of our human interactions.
But our flirtation with such human dimensions was soon subverted by our arrogant assumption that we knew what was necessary in each development situation. Perhaps the next phase, in international agricultural terms and of major significance to Asia, was the World Bank’s Training and Visit System. This system paid but lip service to education in the original conception of extension, and assumed a largely one-way flow of information through “visits” to impart information generated by foreign sources or local research. I do not wish to be unnecessarily harsh on these developments as we all subscribed to them to some extent at the time, but we may now see that, without Solomonic wisdom about the integrity of education, extension, and research, we divided the baby and threw much of it out with the bathwater.
With the passing of that phase, we came to our use of the term that is, I think, now in its own demise–technology transfer. I find it revealing that we have moved from a term that was integrated with education through a mechanical phase in which we assumed we could program people to accept new ideas, and now find ourselves in a phase in which the technology seems, in semiotic terms, more important than the person being “transferred to.” In justification for this undoubtedly controversial opinion, I refer to some common definitions, admittedly not specific to agriculture, of technology transfer–all from that new agent of transfer, the Internet.
The most general use of the term ‘technology transfer’, implies a limited ‘scientific’ and ‘commercial’ form of technology; for example, it is defined as [t]he process of transferring scientific findings from research laboratories to the commercial sector (HGP, 2004). A slightly wider conception may be read into another definition, if we think of “activities” as something that includes a two-way communication, but this was probably not what the authors had in mind when they said that technology transfer is [a]ctivities that lead to the adoption of a new technique or product by users and involves dissemination, demonstration, training and other activities that lead to eventual innovation (Oahu Trans, 2004). More honestly, a market-oriented definition simply sees it as an effect rather than a project or activity that is [t]hrough trade or capital flight, the movement or sharing of technology (BIA, 2004), which can be linked to the preceding definition through another one which conceives technology transfer as [t]he set of activities that support moving research results into the market place (UA, 2004). But I think the unspoken assumptions of development are best indicated in such definitions as – [t]he practice of making technological information and aid available at low or no cost to agencies in developing countries (Global Change, 2004).
For balance, I also include an FAO definition, which, recognizing this age of “sustainability,” states that technology transfer [is] a system under which various inter-related components of technology, namely, ‘hardware’ (materials such as a variety), ‘software’ (technique, know-how, information), humanware (human ability), ‘orgaware’ (organizational, management aspects) and the final product (including marketing) are rendered accessible to the end-users (farmers). The system also includes institutional capacity for technology adoption, adaptation or rejection, constituting a matrix of technology component and institutional capacities for absorbing technologies. Thus, technology transfer has both functional and institutional meanings. This approach also recognizes the right of farmers to reject a technology and aims to minimize such an event by assessing each technology’s suitability before it is “transferred.” Nevertheless, the developmental paradigm is assumed, and the direction of technology flow, while theoretically two-way, is described as if it only flows towards the farmer.
From such definitions, one might be led to assume that:
-the outputs of technological science fuel technology transfer
-the benefits are to be measured in modern commercial terms
-receipt of technology is universally a benefit
-technology transfer upgrades non-market agriculture
-the role of developing countries is as recipients of technology
While not exhaustive, such a list provides a basis for consideration, in the final section of this paper, of how modern technology transfer omits lessons from the majority of agricultural history if we separate it from culture and hegemony. It is to that historical perspective that we now turn.
Ancient Asian agriculture
We know little about the evolution of agriculture, and what we think we know is usually interpreted within our prevailing scientific paradigm of evolution, with which I am infected as much as anyone. But Darwin offered us little encouragement when he observed that [t]he problem, however, of the first advance of savages toward civilization is at present much too difficult to be solved (Darwin, 1874).
Still too difficult to solve, we have nevertheless postulated various scenarios. Among informed speculation, we may suggest that population pressure encouraged crop cultivation some time after pastoralism had developed. With the sedentary state necessitated by agriculture, part of Asia saw the faster spread of the Indo-European languages in association with agricultural technology transfer than had occurred in the pastoral era (Renfrew, 1969). We do well to recall that these languages include Albanian, Armenian, Baltic, Celtic, English, French, German, Greek, Indian, Iranian, Italic, Slavic and Spanish. If one accepts that the language arose somewhere around modern Turkey, then the ancient sites for agricultural origins might well be there also and agricultural technology was transferred from East to West for most of our civilized history. Even if we take the view that there was more than one site of origin of agriculture, we must acknowledge that with more than one separate development of language, we can relate language similarities to cultural and technological transfer.
The common origin of languages that suggests the direction of agricultural technology transfer appears to be confirmed by the time frames suggested by current archaeological dating. It seems to have taken between two and four thousand years to reach Europe from the Middle East (Renfrew, 1969). As for spread between the Indus and Mesopotamia, we must await more than current conjecture. Gene frequencies studies of the European population suggest that this language and technological spread occurred with Neolithic migrations.
Migration alone suggests that there is no place for racial or national pride in these matters as the development of agriculture may have had more to do with amenable plant species (Diamond, 1998) and favorable climatic change (Wright, 1977). From such an argument we might postulate that our further research would follow the apparent distribution of easily bred species with large-sized seeds, which Diamond (1998) lists as being mainly in Mediterranean West Asia, Europe, North Africa (33 species), the Americas (11), East Asia (6), sub-Saharan Africa (4), and Australia (2). However, diffusion--the ancient form of technology transfer--reveals a possible lesson for our future consideration;. that is, technology is developed and applied where there is potential and may well be transferred in association with cultural transfer through migration and other means. Such transfers followed latitudinal similarities of climate and soils.
So we turn to our current knowledge of the possible times of the emergence of pre-agricultural practices and agriculture (after Smith, 1995).
Region of domestication
/Intensive foraging
/Agriculture
Middle East / 13,000 BCE / 9,500 BCENorth China / 9,600 BCE / > 7,000 BCE
South China / 10,000 BCE / 6,000 BCE
Sub-Saharan Africa / 7,000 BCE / 2,700 BCE
South Central Andes / 5,000 BCE / 3,250 BCE
Central Mexico / 5,000 BCE / 3,750 BCE
Eastern United States / 4,000 BCE / 3,250 BCE
Highland New Guinea / not known / ca.7,000 BCE
Amazonia / not known / ca.8,000 BCE
Northwestern Europe / 10,500 BCE / 5,000 BCE
Southwestern U.S. / 4,000 BCE / 1,500 BCE
Japan / 8,500 BCE / 1,000 BCE
California / 2,000 BCE / <400 CE
Australia / 1,500 BCE / <200 CE
It is possible that Asia will yet reveal more separate origins of agriculture, perhaps as old as Mesopotamia, as north China sites now indicate agriculture having been practiced 6,000 BCE in a form that may have taken millennia to develop, and other related sites indicate intensive plant and animal collection around 9,600 BCE. Similarly, we now know from genetic analysis that the domestication of the Bos taurus cattle of Europe and the Bos indicus of India probably arose separately rather than by technology transfer.
It may be that agricultural technologies were transferred with migration from Mesopotamia to the Indus valley, or the other way around, or that a two-way exchange occurred between the areas. It doesn’t matter which was first. Rather the lesson is that there was no physical orclimatic barrier across these similar regions, in contradistinction with areas further east in India, where monsoonal rainfall represented a barrier to existing technology. Likewise, the barrier between India and China, the other early center of Asian agriculture, was mountains and deserts. Thus China developed in isolation, with technology transfer following its long river valleys, until about 2,000 BCE when wider international contact began.
China presents another facet of technology development and transfer. Agriculture had consolidated civilization, which had evolved through various phases to a dominant political base with technologies of power, particularly a uniform writing script and language for officials. This was probably the world’s most powerful means of transferring technologies if that had been the intent of the Empire. To a large extent this occurred, but what is also important to us is that the communication technology served to determine the status of groups in the Empire. Thus we can trace the languages of the less-privileged emigrants of China, such as the Tai from southern China.
These migrating Tai introduced their own technologies to what is now Thailand and other areas, and established a living museum of technological influence that is still today inseparable from cultural influence. I have discussed the association of Tai agricultural technologies with their eventual political domination in an earlier paper to the Asian Agri-history Foundation (Falvey, 2001).
Dependence on agriculture, from as early as 10,000 BCE, but possibly only 6,000 BCE, produced environmental damage that also assists us in tracing its progress. To account for the different apparent areas of origin for agriculture, it is postulated that it began separately in the Middle East (9,000 BCE), Southeast Asia (7,500 BCE), and central Mexico (7,000 BCE)–in each case relating to a staple crop that proved amenable to simple genetic selection. To this were added, in Egypt and Mesopotamia, sophisticated irrigation technologies by 3,000 BCE and then the plow, with concomitant increases in production and reliability (Chiras, 1994).
In any discussion of technology transfer, we must acknowledge that the most adopted inventions of agriculture occurred in prehistory. We think that the Indus valley civilization sprang up before 2,500 BCE in what is now Pakistan and northwestern India, and that of the Huang He Valley in China before 1,700 BCE. And we think that domestication of animals and textile industries sprang up after simple agriculture. It is these more recent millennia that may help us to consolidate a view about ancient agricultural technology transfer.
The recent millennia
Aspects of Asian agri-history in this period have been discussed in an earlier paper (Falvey, 2002), here paraphrased with additions in the following paragraphs.
In addition to the Indus valley civilization, independent agricultural settlements arose in southeastern India (Allchin and Allchin, 1982). With a secure agricultural base, the Harappan culture developed until immigrant Aryan pastoralists gained dominance and merged cattle grazing with agriculture at a time when the great Vedic culture was developing. The recording of such accomplishments seems to be a byproduct of rising awareness of human consciousness, but nonetheless provides us with information on agricultural technology development and transfer, including a cultural awareness of relationships with nature (Majumdar, 1957).
The early territorial states (600-332 BCE) that followed the Vedic Age relied on a structured caste system involving landowners, slaves, and laborers in a form that facilitated trade of agricultural and other commodities. Smaller kingdoms followed in the period of 200 BCE–300 CE and included Greek rulers who, in at least one case, adopted an Indian culture; Menander or Milinda, a general with Alexander, appears to have settled in what is now Pakistan and adopted Buddhism around 150 BCE. Current thought holds that the majority of the indigenous populace gradually adopted Aryan culture as they shifted from tribal to peasant economies in response to maritime trading of agricultural commodities (Kosambi, 1965). How was technology transferred in this era? If we accept that the Aryan culture was dominating at the time, it would seem that it is again difficult to separate cultural transfer from technology transfer, and that its direction of flow was probably two-way.
With the rising international contact of the Classical Age (300-650 CE) as documented by, for example, the Chinese pilgrim Fa Hsien, technological advances in various fields were also associated with cultural exchange. At this time, Indianization in Southeast Asia occurred along such trading routes as the Straits of Melaka and the Srivijaya kingdom of Sumatra, which in turn influenced surrounding areas. But it seems that where an existing productive agriculture existed, agricultural technology transfer was perhaps not as prevalent – probably because it was not necessary.
Classical Indian influence entered Southeast Asia through Brahmanical culture in Sumatra, Java, and Kalimantan, and its influence was not significantly displaced by the subsequent Islam. Indianized kingdoms reflecting Indian aesthetics, writing forms, and god-king-ruler concepts emerged in Champa (Vietnam) and Angkor (Cambodia) and spread to other parts of Indochina with Hinduism and Buddhism, and to Ayutthaya where it expanded the previously introduced Buddhism. When we find Indian technologies in the agriculture of these areas, we cannot view them in isolation from that cultural influence.
Indian culture provided Southeast Asian rulers with a means of demonstrating status. Courtly accoutrements, edifices, and religions from India were adapted to local mores, such that, for example, the caste system was never fully implemented in Southeast Asia and Indian gods shared powers alongside continuing local gods. In agricultural terms, the complex and highly successful Javanese irrigation management systems were largely unaffected by local rulers’ adoption of Indian ways, although they appear to have been used to consolidate influence over the coalitions of water management groups that represented a ruler’s domain. Labor for temple construction was necessarily drawn from the agricultural producers who developed high skills and appear to have not had to compromise seasonal farming operations. Temples became the focus of agricultural marketing, and thus labor may well have been factored into transactions. The essentially ceremonial role of rulers encouraged further orientation to India for art and religio-cultural development, including the sponsoring of Buddhist monks from Nalanda to Srivijaya. These matters were of greater significance than agriculture and so technology transfer was simply a byproduct of the wider cultural transfer.