Читать книгу Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 1 - Группа авторов - Страница 35

The post-war historical and macroeconomic contexts generated an institutional environment that placed the State at the center of productive investment in the sector of food and agriculture. In this context, the models developed in the industry in terms of research specialization, economies of scale, competitiveness and the dissemination of technical artifacts were applied to innovation in agriculture. A consumer society structured by an agro-industrial and agri-food sector (cereals, oilseeds, meat) became globalized. Innovation became the driving force of competition. The objective of international agronomic research was then focused on increasing global food production through new technologies, known as the green revolution.

During this period, the social sciences studied and supported technical changes in agriculture using the notion of innovation conceived as the process of farmers adopting new technical objects (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, machines, etc.) that have been developed by research and industry. Rural sociology, with Rogers’ work in the United States, thus, for over 30 years, provided analytical methods for the diffusion of new technologies, studying the obstacles to their adoption according to typologies of adopters. Other work analyzes societal resistance to agricultural modernization (Mendras 1970). A Marxist-inspired school of thought also criticized agricultural innovation as a means of extending capitalism in order to integrate agriculture into industrial sectors.