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The Social Bases of Technical Change: Mechanization of the Wheatlands of Argentina and Canada, 1890 to 1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Jeremy Adelman
Jeremy Adelman
Affiliation:
University of Essex
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Extract

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Argentina and Canada experienced unprecedented economic growth. In the period stretching from 1890 to 1914, Argentina and Canada played host to millions of migrating Europeans and became the largest borrowers on the world's capital markets. The infusion of foreign labour and capital helped to convert the empty grasslands into bread baskets for the world.

The expansion was propelled by crops in the export sector, mainly cereals cultivated on the Argentine pampas and the Canadian prairies. By the early years of this century, wheat became the premier export for both countries, and eventually ranked among the world's top cereal exporters. After World War I, both countries combined to supply around 60 percent of the world's total wheat export trade.1 Argentina and Canada exemplified what was beneficial about export-led development.

Type
The Social Ground of Modern Agriculture
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , April 1992 , pp. 271 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1992

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References

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28 Buckley, Kenneth, Capital Formation in Canada, 1896–1930 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974 edition), 7.Google Scholar For a recent calculation that arrives at lower figures, see Mclnnis, “Output and Productivity in Canadian Agriculture.” For a critique of his figures, see Gavin Wright's comments in the same volume.

29 Grain Growers' Guide, August 5, 1914.

30 Farmers' Advocate, February 12, 1913.

31 Farm and Ranch Review, April 1905; Grain Growers' Guide, November 23, 1910.

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36 Farmers' Advocate, February 24, 1909.

37 See “Condition of Grain Crops and the Use of Soil Packers,” Bulletin No. 18, (Regina: Saskatchewan Department of Agriculture, 1910).Google Scholar

38 Farmers' Advocate, January 13, 1909; Farm and Ranch Review, July 1906; Canadian Thresherman, March 1913; Nor'West Farmer, January 5, 1901.

39 The Canadian Thresherman, January 1913.

40 Farm and Ranch Review, July 1906.

41 Farmers' Advocate, June 4, 1913; Canadian Thresherman, July 1913.

42 Lumsden, Through Canada in Harvest Time, 114.

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50 Harriet Friedmann has explored the theoretical implications of the self-employment aspect of household farming. See her “World Market, State, and Family Farm: Social Bases of Household Production in the Era of Wage Labor” and “Household Production and the National Economy: Concepts for the Analysis of Agrarian Formations,” Journal of Peasant Studies, 7:1 (1980), 158–84.Google Scholar See also Hedley, Max, “Relations of Production of the ‘Family Farm’: Canadian Prairies,” Journal of Peasant Studies, 9:1 (1981), 71–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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52 Canada, Census of Canada, 1901 and 1916; Buckley, Capital Formation in Canada, 36.

53 This was clear to farmers and agronomists of the day. See Canadian Farm Implements, July, 1905; Farmers' Advocate, May 24, 1911. Furtan, Hartley and Lee, George, “Economic Development of the Saskatchewan Wheat Economy,” Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 25 (1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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55 Saskatchewan Archive Board, R–243, vol. 3, testimony of R. H. Hoyer; Province of Saskatchewan, , Report of the Agricultural Credit Commission of the Province of Saskatchewan (Regina, 1913).Google Scholar See also Farm and Ranch Review, March 1908; Canadian Farm Implements, July 1905.

56 Farm and Ranch Review, May 10, 1910; Jeremy Adelman, “Prairie Farm Debt.”

57 Mavor, , “The Economic Results of the Specialist Production and Marketing of Wheat,” Political Science Quarterly, 26 (1911);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Buckley, Capital Formation in Canada, 36; Dick, Trevor J.O., “Productivity Change and Grain Farm Practice on the Canadian Prairies, 1900–1930,” Journal of Economic History, 40:1 (1980), 105–10;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Mechanization and North American Prairie Farm Costs, 1896–1930,” Journal of Economic History, 42:3 (1982), 659–82.Google Scholar In the most recent attempt to estimate productivity growth in Canadian agriculture during this period, Mclnnis notes that capital investments grew apace with other inputs, averaging, for the country as a whole, a growth of 2.95 percent per annum between the years 1871 and 1921. The highest growth rate came between 1901 and 1921, registering 3.89 percent growth per annum. Mclnnis is quick to point out that the rate of capital investment exceeded the rate of growth of farm output. See Mclnnis, “Output and Productivity in Canadian Agriculture, 1870–71 to 1926–27,” 759–60.

58 See Wright, “Comment,” in Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, Engerman and Gallman, eds. This was also true of American agriculture in the west. See Parker and Klein, “Productivity Growth in Grain Production in the United States,” 102–3. According to Parker and Klein, mechanization, especially in reaping and harvesting, accounted for half the overall growth in productivity, without necessarily enhancing the productivity of capital inputs. See also Robert E. Gallman, “Changes in Total U.S. Agricultural Factor Productivity in the Nineteenth Century,” 191–210.

59 Farmers' Advocate, March 12, 1913.

60 Boletin del Departamento National de Agricultura, t. XIV (1890), 194,Google Scholar and t. XV (1891), 626; El Campo y el Sport, mayo 6, 1893; La Semana Rural, julio 12, 1898.

61 Nacional, Congreso, Investigation parlamentaria sobre agricultura, ganaderia, industrias derivadas y colonizatión (Buenos Aires, 1989), 50.Google Scholar

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63 Boletin National de Agricultura, t. XIX (1895), 162;Google Scholar La Agricultura, enero 14, 1897.

64 Gacela Rural, julio 1913.

65 La Agricultura, enero 27, 1898.

66 La Agricultura, diciembre 19, 1901; abril 23, 1896; Congreso Nacional, Investigatión parlamentaria, 50; Boletin del Ministerio de Agricultura, 6:5 (diciembre 1906), 320; Anales de la Sociedad Rural Argentina, xxxv (1900).Google Scholar

67 El Municipio (Pergamino), abril 7, 1901; La Agricultura, mayo 30, 1895.

68 Frank Bicknell,Wheat Production and Farm Life in Argentina, United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Statistics, Bulletin no. 27, 26; Nacional, Congreso, Diario de Sesiones, Diputados, Sesiones Ordinarios, t. I, 08 23 1899.Google Scholar

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71 Bicknell, Wheat Production and Farm Life, 65; See also Rañna, Eduardo, Instructions practicaspara el cultivo de los cereales en la Republica Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1905), 31–32;Google Scholar and Miatello, Hugo, “Investigatión Agrícola en la Provincia de Santa Fe,” Anales del Ministerio de Agricultura, I (1904), 249;Google ScholarProducción Nacional, enero 16, 1896; La Agricultura, enero 14, 1897;abril 18, 1901.

72 Boletin del Ministerio de Agricultura, 14:8 (agosto 1912). See also Ferré, Jose Adolfo, Maquinas para la cosecha de cereales (Buenos Aires, 1917).Google Scholar

73 Gaceta Rural, febrero 1914.

74 See Jeremy Adelman, Frontier Development, appendix II; Archivo William Walker, Instituto Torcuato Di Telia, copiador ‘C’ III, Walker to Agar Cross, February 23, 1903.

75 La Agricultura, enero 27, 1898; Eduardo Larguí'a, “Datos económicos sobre la trilla,” Boletin No. 1, Oficina Quimico-agrícola de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (marzo 1898); Tort, Maria Isabel, “Los contratistas de maquinaria agrícola: una modalidad de organizatión economica del trabajo agricola en la Pampa Humeda,” Centro de estudios e Investigaciones Laborales, Documento de Trabajo No. 11 (Buenos Aires, 1983).Google Scholar

76 Republic, Argentine, Tercer Censo National, 1914, t. V, 73.Google Scholar

77 Ministerio de Agriculture, Memoria, 1904–1905; Huret, Jules, De Buenos Aires au Gran Chaco (Paris, 1911), 464.Google Scholar See also William Walker's contracts, in which the estate owner furnished the machinery (Archivo William Walker, III, draft contract, June 1, 1902).

78 Girola, Carlos, “Agriculture argentina,” Anales de la Sociedad Rural Argentina, xxvi (1892); xlGoogle Scholar(mayo–junio 1905); Zeballos, Estanislao, La concurrencia universaly la agricultura en ambas Americas: lnforme presentado al excelentisimo senor Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de la Republica Argentina, Dr. Don Eduardo Costa (Washington, 1894), 464.Google Scholar

79 La Agricultura, septiembre 12, 1901; El Campo y el sport, diciembre 4, 189.

80 South American Journal, August 5, 1899.

81 Productión Nacional, enero 16, 1896; La Agricultura, septiembre 12, 1895; noviembre 23, 1899; Conde, Roberto Cortes, “Tendencias en la evolucion de los salarios reales en la Argentina, 1880–1910,” Instituto Torcuato Di Telia, Documento de Trabajo no. 74 (Buenos Aires, 1975);Google Scholar Jeremy Adelman, “The Harvest Hand: Wage-Labouring on the Pampas.”

82 See Ministerio de Agricultura, Memoria, 1905–1907; Jeremy Adelman, “Agricultural Credit in the Province of Buenos Aires.”

83 Boletin de Agricultura y Ganaderia, 6:99 (marzo 1906);Google Scholar Jeremy Adelman, “Agricultural Credit in the Province of Buenos Aires,” 69–88.