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DECH dech12129 Dispatch: August 27, 2014 CE:
Journal MSP No. No. of pages: 27 PE: Kirsten
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The Malleability of Participation: The Politics of
Agricultural Research under Neoliberalism in Bolivia
Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
ABSTRACT
This article analyses how neoliberal restructuring encouraged the use of
participatory methods in agricultural research in Bolivia and how, at a later
stage, participatory development initiatives had to be adapted to prevent
conflicts with the post-neoliberal views of farmer organizations. The article
contributes to the debate on the normalization of participatory methods in
agrarian development. Engaging with Foucault’s work on governmentality
and neoliberalism, our analysis goes beyond interpretations of participation
which conceptualize it exclusively as a technology of power to discipline
subjects. Drawing on a distinction between a liberal and a neoliberal moment
in the restructuring of agricultural research, we study the case of PROINPA
(Foundation for the Promotion and Research of Andean Products), a national
NGO that was once part of the state system for agricultural research but
was then privatized. Although PROINPA employed participation mainly to
enhancemanagerial effectiveness, it also facilitatedmoments of participation
from below. We argue that participation designed by this type of NGO is
not just ‘technical’ as PROINPA professionals would like to perceive it, nor
is it simply ‘political’ as critical views on participation hold. Instead it is
malleable in the sense that each actor is involved in finding a new balance
between technical, economic and political considerations.
INTRODUCTION
Neoliberal restructuring and the popular protests it gives rise to can have a
marked impact on agricultural research and farmers’ participation therein.
Recent history in Bolivia provides an instructive case. Inspired by popular
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Collaborative Crop Research Programme
(CCRP) of the McKnight Foundation and Wageningen University. We would like to thank
the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions and useful comments. Field
research in Bolivia was possible due to the invaluable help of PROINPA. Special thanks to
Rolando Oros, Julio Gabriel and Juan Vallejo. We also thank Carlos Perez, Monique Nuijten,
Wolfram Dressler, Vivian Polar and Edson Gandarillas for their helpful comments on previous
versions of this manuscript. InMorochata, our thanks go to the organizations and individuals who
were extremely generous with their time and shared with us their views on rural transformation.
Development and Change 0(0): 1–27. DOI: 10.1111/dech.12129
C© 2014 International Institute of Social Studies.
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2 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
protest against water privatization (Water War) in Cochabamba (Assies,
2003), the coca farmer blockades in Chapare region (Albo´, 2003) and the
‘Gas War’ (Perrault, 2007), peasants under the leadership of Felipe Quispe
and the Pachakuti Movement invaded several agricultural research stations
(Patacamaya station in August 2002, Kallutaca and Huayrocondo stations in
September and October of 2003, and Bele´n station in 2004; see El Diario,
2003, 2004, 2005). Gene banks of important crops and animals (including
the Andean camelids, llamas and alpacas) were attacked and documents
and passport databases were lost, making it impossible to continue with
any on-station research (Coca, 2010; Quispe, 2005). The resulting material
damage came on top of already declining state support for research stations
and led to a de facto dismantling and decay of infrastructure, machinery and
laboratories. These events left a strong imprint on agricultural researchers.As
one interviewed researcher who lamented the destruction of her technically
successful experimental station stated:
After the invasion [my research station] remained a shell. It makes you think that you can do
a lot of research, much development, but if you do not address the pertinent social issues there
won’t be anything. You have first to look at the social issue before [deciding whether] other
systems of research or development will bear fruit. (..) This research station was invaded by
people from the community because the producers did not see any fruit from the research
processes. (..) [This] strengthens the idea that you have to address the needs and demands
of farmers, and that they really participate and take decisions about the research. (Interview,
5 October 2010)
The last sentence of this quote refers to the ongoing restructuring of the
relationship between applied research and society as a consequence of ne-
oliberal policies which favoured a particular form of farmer participation in
agricultural research. What is at stake here is a complex interaction between
notions of participation, research design and popular politics. This article
discusses how neoliberal restructuring of agricultural research in Bolivia
embraced an increased use of participatory methods by research organiza-
tions that had once been part of the public system of agricultural research
but were now privatized. Our analysis hinges not so much on the heated
events of invasions, but on the normalization of participatory methods in
agricultural technology innovation and the implications for thinking about
technological improvement and politics.1 The article builds on a case study
of PROINPA, once a state institution but later transformed into a national
NGO. PROINPA is a forerunner in agricultural research in the Bolivian
Andes and has developed significant initiatives in the field of participatory
plant breeding.
Participatory development, once the leitmotif of the more progressive part
of the development community (Galjart, 1981; Vı´o Grossi et al., 1981), has
1. Invasions as such had their historical roots in disputes over land tenure, land taken from
communities by the state, but were triggered by the national anti-neoliberal protests. The
land question falls outside the remit of this article.
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The Politics of Agricultural Research in Bolivia 3
become increasingly mainstream and subject to reflexive critique (Hickey
and Mohan, 2005). What is now regarded as ‘participatory development
orthodoxy’ has been criticized for too readily assuming that motivations
and behaviour in participatory processes are authentic. It is argued that the
language of empowerment may mask an underlying concern for managerial
effectiveness, and the emphasis on micro-level interventions may obscure
broader macro-level inequalities and injustices (Cooke and Kothari, 2001:
14). These critics also argue that participatory development obscures poli-
tics by keeping participatory practice within the frame imposed by project
interventions (ibid.). Along these same lines, Cornwall (2006: 50) refers
to participation as ‘[an] infinitely malleable term’ since it can be used as
a vehicle for different kinds of purposes and can be framed to suit almost
any situation. Below we will assess if this also applies to the experience of
PROINPA during the neoliberal period in Bolivia. We also aim to contribute
to the debate on participation.Much of the criticism of participatory develop-
ment draws upon ideas from Foucault (e.g. Kothari, 2001; Williams, 2004)
and particularly on his early work on disciplining and power/knowledge
(e.g. Foucault, 1977). According to the critics, ‘participatory development
can encourage a reassertion of control and power by dominant individuals
and groups’ (Kothari, 2001: 142). However, using Foucault’s later work
on governmentality and neoliberalism, one can develop another reading
of participatory development than that of the rather unified Machiavellian
anti-politics machine of development in which participation only disciplines.
Conceptualizing participation as a productiveway of governing people rather
than as being simply repressive and negative, wewill explore howPROINPA
has created new forms of linking technological innovation to small farmers
and how it has sought ways to ‘improve populations’ (Li, 2007a).
The discussion on governmentality is useful here in three ways. First, to
understand the role of participatory development in neoliberalism we ex-
amine not so much how power is constituted in and by the state through
‘particular and identifiable individuals’ as in sovereign and disciplinary
power (Foucault, 1977), but how power circulates through a range of institu-
tions rather than being concentrated in one. This means that elements of the
agricultural research system (such as PROINPA) can be seen as sites where
micro-technologies of power are constituted. Governing people through sci-
ence management at micro-levels (Phillips and Ilcan, 2003) is not a way of
forcing people but is a versatile, complementary and conflictive equilibrium
between techniques of coercion and those of constructing and modifying the
self (Lemke, 2001: 5). Below we will focus in particular on how a new re-
searcher is constructed in the course of participatory development. Second,
complementing studies that focus on the analysis of micro-technologies of
intervention and everyday relations of power (Dean, 1999; Miller and Rose,
1990), we draw upon recent work that reads Foucault as a genealogist of
statecraft and examine relationships between micro-technologies and the
exercise of macro-power (Jessop, 2006; Lemke, 2007; Tyfield 2012), in our
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4 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
case the restructuring of agricultural research in the era of neoliberalism.
Third, this task requires a clear notion of neoliberalism. For Foucault ne-
oliberalism is a form of government in which power works, not by force,
as in more authoritarian regimes, but through the use of freedom to create
responsible citizen-subjects (Ferguson, 2010; Foucault, 1991). Below we
distinguish a liberal and a neoliberal moment in the recent restructuring of
agricultural research (Lemke, 2001) in which the former is mainly concerned
with rolling back the state, while the latter is concerned with redefining the
boundaries between the state and civil society, and between the state and
the economy. Neoliberalism is not so much about getting rid of the state
(or publicly funded agricultural research), but about making the market the
organizing and regulatory principle underlying both the state and other do-
mains of decision making (ranging from professional agricultural research
to the family and the Andean ‘community’) (Flew, 2012; Lemke, 2001).
The article is structured as follows. The next two sections describe the
liberal and neoliberal moments in the recent restructuring of agricultural re-
search in Bolivia (from state-led to more decentralized and demand-driven).
Section four reviews the PROINPA case, not simply as an organization im-
plementing a neoliberal plan, but as a form of self-organization within a
context of national and international ideas on participation and economic
(funding) influences. The final sections discuss the balance between the
technical and the political in contrasting views of participatory agricultural
research.
Data collection in Bolivia (August–October 2010 and August–December
2011) consisted of (a) content analysis of literature and policy documents,
including PROINPA project documents; (b) semi-structured interviews with
different types of actor in the agricultural research system in the cities of La
Paz, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and Sucre; and (c) semi-structured interviews
and participant observation in Morochata, one of PROINPA’s intervention
sites. In total, fifty-two interviews were analysed.
BUILDING TECHNOSTATIST AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND THE
LIBERALIZATION RESPONSE
The agricultural research system pursued in Boliva in the second half of
the twentieth century followed a technostatist approach to science policy
(Tyfield, 2012). Accordingly, science was seen as an expert system func-
tionally separate from the market and as such to be organized by the state as
part of its modernization strategy. As in many other parts of Latin America,
external aid played an important steering role. Prior to the 1950s, agricul-
tural research centres in Bolivia were practically non-existent. The report of
the US Bohan Mission recommended agricultural modernization to end the
country’s economic dependence on non-renewable natural resources and to
transform Bolivia’s indigenous agriculture. It led to a US$26 million loan
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The Politics of Agricultural Research in Bolivia 5
from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, crucial for setting up
experimental stations in the Andes (Gandarillas, 2001; Godoy et al., 1993).
This ‘pipeline’ model of knowledge considered agricultural research to
be the exclusive domain of scientists. It focused on importing technologies
from advanced countries and adopting them after testing for suitability in
different local agro-ecosystems. Use of improved varieties and agrochemical
inputs as advocated by the Green Revolution approach were important ele-
ments. Central to this modernization model was the building of expertise, in
particular through the Bolivian Institute of Agricultural Technology (IBTA)
created in 1975 by the Ministry of Rural and Agricultural Affairs (MACA)2
(Gandarillas, 2001; Gandarillas et al., 2007). IBTA researchers were trained
abroad with a view to enhancing their capacity to carry out research (World
Bank, 1999).3 On account of its efforts to train new agricultural engineers,
IBTA became seen as a relatively solid entity that enjoyed prestige among
researchers.
The technostatist approach to agricultural research became subject to re-
form as part of the liberalization drive that started at the end of eighteen
years of dictatorship (1964–1982). In a period of political instability, pro-
found economic crisis and hyperinflation, structural adjustment policies as
advocated by the InternationalMonetary Fundwere adopted in 1985 (Garcı´a-
Linera, 2008; Kohl et al., 2006). The so-called New Economic Policy aimed
to stabilize prices and develop a market economy. It announced a wave
of privatization of public companies and imposed severe budget cuts in
agricultural research. State funding of agricultural research dropped from
US$ 12 million in 1980 (Bebbington and Thiele, 1993: 70) to an average
of just US$ 4.5 million between 1985–1990 (Crespo, 2000: 29). The jus-
tification for this was provided by an ISNAR/IICA evaluation supported
by the World Bank (ISNAR, 1989; Quijandrı´a, 1989). This evaluation ar-
gued that IBTA lacked the administrative autonomy to deal with recurrent
changes in government and the political instability resulting from a long
period of dictatorship. Each change in government was preceded by changes
in the composition of national and regional management boards and even of
technical staff along party and clientelist lines. ISNAR/IICA (World Bank,
1991) points to a high turnover of professional staff who lacked professional
breadth and depth. The institution did not have the personnel to carry out
scientific work; only 8 per cent of researchers had a postgraduate degree
2. FAO, the International Service for National Agricultural Research (IICA), Interamerican
Development Bank (IDB), World Bank, Swiss Cooperation, and USAID, among others,
funded laboratories and basic equipment for the experimental centres and financed the
establishment of the country’s gene banks, especially for potato, quinoa, forage, cereals and
Andean grains (Coca, 2010; Gandarillas, 2001). International cooperation aimed at creating
and sustaining a research system that would resist battering from the dictatorship periods
and institutional crises.
3. Three PhDs and twenty-four MScs were trained in European and American universities
(World Bank, 1999).
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6 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
(2 per cent had a PhD — one of whom was the director, and 6 per cent had
an MSc degree), 20 per cent were fully trained agronomists while 72 per
cent were technicians (World Bank, 1991). Crucial in the reform process
was a US$ 21 million loan from the World Bank in 1991. This imposed a re-
duction in both the thematic and geographic coverage of IBTA’s research so
that in place of researching almost all highland crops, the emphasis shifted
to five national programmes: potato, quinoa, cereals (wheat and barley),
leguminous plants (beans and peas) and camelids. External funding from in-
ternational cooperation was restricted to potato and quinoa, both subsistence
crops for which the Andes is a centre of origin and biodiversity (Quijandrı´a,
1989). Research on rice, corn and soybeans was delegated to the Centre of
Tropical Agricultural Research (CIAT-SCZ),4 supported by the Santa Cruz
provincial government, and the privately funded Centre for Phytogenetic
Research of Paurumani in the department of Cochabamba. The remaining
research areas either disappeared or only survivedwhen attached to a specific
state development project. Restructuring policies abandoned fundamental re-
search projects and only continued to support adaptive or applied research.
Thus out of eleven experimental stations, IBTA kept only three, considering
that these represented a ‘sufficient’ agro-ecological coverage. Other sta-
tions were handed over to universities or departmental governments (Coca,
2010).5
Restructuring policies aimed to make IBTA independent from the Min-
istry of Agriculture in the recruitment of technical personnel and to raise
wage levels to attract well-trained professionals at the start of their careers.
The reality, however, was quite different. Although IBTA reduced its per-
sonnel by 40 per cent, jobs, especially at managerial level, continued to be
the preserve of political sympathizers. And althoughmore than thirty profes-
sionals received postgraduate training, there were serious complaints about
research conditions. In a letter to the Minister of Finance, one researcher
protested against the cut in IBTA’s budget as follows:
The real concern is the consequence of trying to continue at current levels of compensation
[from the state]. For example, at current salary levels, we would have to reduce salaries by
35 per cent on average or alternatively reduce the payroll (positions). For operational costs,
the required reduction would be around 90 per cent. If it were necessary to take these actions,
the current staff would not be able to produce appropriate technology, negatively affecting
institutional prestige, as well as our efforts at agricultural extension and decentralization
(Posner, 1994).
This letter and researchers’ reports on the consequences of budget cuts
made no difference. The adjustment policies did little more than create a lack
of interest and unwillingness by the state to support agricultural research,
4. This article uses the acronym CIAT-SCZ to distinguish it from CIAT (International Centre
for Tropical Agriculture, a CGIAR centre).
5. IBTA selected the following stations: Patacamaya (quinoa), San Benito (cereals, legumes,
and the fruit transfer programme) and Toralapa (potato).
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The Politics of Agricultural Research in Bolivia 7
implying continued job insecurity, low salaries and growing rather than
diminishing political interference in the selection of personnel.
NEOLIBERAL STATE RESTRUCTURINGS AND PARTICIPATION IN
AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH IN BOLIVIA
While reducing the role of the state in agricultural research can be seen as
part of liberalization and privatization, the neoliberal moment also involved
restructuring the relationship between technical expertise and the end user.
The World Bank intervention was not only directed at the ‘retreat of the
state’ in agricultural research but also aimed to improve IBTA’s technical
capacities, increase its autonomy vis-a`-vis the central government and create
new forms of articulation and communication with its end users. Extension
services were cancelled and consequently IBTA’s regional extension offices
were closed down. The introduction of the notion of ‘pre-assistance’ (World
Bank, 1991) — or no direct assistance to farmers — was instrumental in
writing off the model in which technology is transferred from the experi-
mental stations to the regional extension offices and thence to end users. It
meant the establishment of new lines of communication with end users of
technologies (farmers and rural entrepreneurs) via NGOs and agribusiness,
or ‘intermediate users’. In the late 1980s, technically-oriented NGOs also
received funding from the Fondo Social de Emergencia (Social Emergency
Fund) for small projects which aimed to mitigate the social costs and effects
of neoliberal economic policies (Kohl et al., 2006) or what Li (2007b: 21)
calls ‘managing the fallout from capitalism’s advance’. IBTA researchers
started to instruct trainers within the NGOs. This helped NGOs to develop
operational relations with IBTA, although the process of becoming interme-
diaries between IBTA and the farmers was not always effective (Bebbington
and Thiele, 1993). Financial resources were unequally distributed — while
NGOs carried out extension and rural development on a total budget of
about US$ 10 million per year (Godoy et al., 1993:7), government support
to IBTA did not amount to even half of this (Bebbington and Thiele, 1993:
120).
IBTA ceased functioning in 1998 as a result of the administrative de-
centralization law of 1995 and after the government determined that the
institution had not demonstrated sufficient impact on producers. In fact,
it meant a complete withdrawal by the state from serious involvement in
agricultural research until 2001 when IBTA was replaced by the Bolivian
System of Agricultural Technology (SIBTA), a partnership between the
ministries of Economic Development, Rural Affairs and Foreign Trade and
Investment. SIBTA dispensed with the remaining experimental stations and
transferred them to the departmental governments (which had neither the
budget nor experience to run them). SIBTA identified a gap between re-
searchers and producers due to the verticality of the research process and the
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8 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
maladaptation of research to the demands of producers and the market (Go-
bierno de Bolivia, 2000; Hartwich et al., 2007). It proposed implementing a
neoliberal rationale in the agricultural research system, preventing external
values and politicization from influencing the efficiency and technical char-
acter of research. Management of agricultural research and extension shifted
from the state to semi-autonomous regional foundations created in the four
eco-regions of the country: highlands, valleys, tropics and Chaco. These pri-
vate foundations with ‘public interest’ could administer and manage public,
private and international cooperation resources (Gobierno de Bolivia, 2000).
SIBTA’s contribution to restructuring the relationship between techni-
cal expertise and end-users contained three important elements: invoking
the language of innovation systems and participatory development, trusting
service providers (mostly NGOs) as the key agents of change, and imple-
mentingmarketmechanisms for the allocation of funds. First, the language of
innovation systems worked to include private actors (agribusiness firms and
consultancy firms) in the research/extension–farmer link, thereby reducing
the role of the state to one among many actors in the system. Innovation sys-
tems respond to changing contexts and require interaction between multiple
actors and sources of knowledge without having a single central conductor
(World Bank, 2012). The concept of innovation emerged from evolutionary
economics but was adapted by the application of systems theory in agricul-
ture (Jansen et al., 2004; for a critique see Jansen, 2009). Crucial notions in
this approach are stakeholder participation, coordination and trust, with the
‘end-user’ of the pipeline model being redefined as a ‘stakeholder’. In devel-
opment discourse, innovation systems applications draw heavily upon earlier
notions of farmer participation (Chambers et al. 1989), farming systems re-
search (Brouwer and Jansen, 1989), and social learning and iterative, adap-
tive thinking (Ashby, 2003; Leeuwis, 2000). Second, participatory action
involved a conceptualization of NGOs as being best placed to carry out re-
search and extension activities due to their attributed independence from the
political manoeuvring inside state agencies, their flexibility to choose their
working areas, their efficiency, technical profile, transparency and account-
ability (Gandarillas, 2006). Third, market rationality in terms of competition,
tendering, cost-benefit analysis, short-term projects and measurable outputs
became central to three new mechanisms for funding research and extension
projects. The most important one in our study was the Applied Technology
Innovation Project (PITA), which selected and funded technological inno-
vation proposals from producer organizations. The PITA procedure looked
primarily at technical feasibility and the potential of integrating producers
and their products into the market (chain approach).6
6. The other two mechanisms were the National Strategic Innovation Project (PIEN) and the
National System of Genetic Resources for Agriculture and Food (SINARGEAA) (Estado
Plurinacional de Bolivia, 2009). SINARGEAA consisted of six germplasm banks: High
Andean Grains Roots and Tubers, in custody of the PROINPA Foundation; Cereals and
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The Politics of Agricultural Research in Bolivia 9
PITAs were based on a competitive market mechanism (bidding) to facil-
itate farmers’ participation. Between 2002 and 2007 SIBTA supported 263
PITAs. To access PITA project funds, producer associations supported by
NGOs had to present projects that typically elaborated concrete demands,
competitiveness in national and export markets, project ownership by farm-
ers’ associations, and adequate counterpart (15 per cent of the project bud-
get). SIBTA selected for funding thirty productive chains or products, which
showed potential for the export market. However, potato and corn, funda-
mental to national food security, were not included within PITAs (in the
Andean region only quinoa and camelids were included) (Lema et al., 2006;
Ranaboldo, 2002). SIBTA established bureaucratic bidding rules that regu-
lated the participation of farmer associations and their relations with service
providers. Farmer associations played an active role as they were responsible
for identifying demands and contributing to research. PITA’s beneficiaries,
who were mainly poor farmers, often contributed in kind or via third-party
donors (Hartwich et al., 2007). Service providers were in charge of organiz-
ing research and technological services as well as designing the participatory
spaces in which technological demands had to be defined. In this way, ser-
vice providers in partnership with the public sector were crucial in shaping
farmers and associations into neoliberal subjects (Lemke, 2001). Training
and capacity-building became crucial for ensuring that these subjects had
the necessary entrepreneurial and market skills to pursue their proposed in-
novations. As we will see below, SIBTA’s neoliberal model was not simply
handed down from above but adapted, engaged with, and even contested by
different actors.
FROM STATE TO NGO: PROINPA AND POTATO RESEARCH AND
EXTENSION
The national and international significance of the potato, its wide geograph-
ical distribution, bio-diversity and economic contribution, gave it special
prominence in the neoliberal restructuring process.7 During the restructur-
ing, public potato research at Toralapa station was reorganized as PROINPA
(the Potato Research Program), managed by IBTA, but with strong techni-
cal and financial support from the International Potato Centre (CIP) and the
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). To maintain job
stability, SDC-funded projects topped up the low salaries of PROINPA’s
researchers. PROINPA collaborated closely with the National Potato Seed
legumes, in custody of the Patin˜o Foundation; Valley Fruit, in custody of the Prefecture of
Tarija; Camelids, in custody of the Technical University of Oruro; and Forestry, in custody
of the University of San Simo´n (UMSS) in Cochabamba (FAO, 2009).
7. With more than 4,000 native varieties (landraces) Bolivia, together with Peru, is a potato
biodiversity hot spot of global importance. Potato is crucial for national food security and
30–40 per cent of farmers grow potatoes (Meinzen-Dick et al., 2009).
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10 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
Project (PROSEMPA), a Dutch-funded potato seed development project,
which was in charge of extension services (Gandarillas et al., 2007).8 Dur-
ing the 1990s, PROINPA was organized into departments (e.g. nematology,
physiology, pathology, etc.) to carry out applied research in selected impact
zones. Its social science department helped to identify themain constraints on
potato cropping among potential technology users. Furthermore, PROINPA
worked on restructuring the PotatoNational Gene Bank (located in Toralapa)
(Gabriel et al., 2006). With IBTA’s closure in 1997, potato research was in
danger of disappearing. To avoid losing skilled human resources and tech-
nological innovation in this key crop, an external evaluation mission of
the programme in 1998 led by the Swiss Cooperation recommended turn-
ing PROINPA into a private, non-profit foundation with public, donor and
self-generated resources (Gandarillas et al., 2007).
The ensuing transformation made PROINPA the largest national NGO
dedicated to agricultural research and development in Bolivia. In 1998,
PROINPA kept its acronym but became the Foundation for the Promotion
and Research of Andean Products (Garandillas et al., 2007). When SIBTA
started in 2001, PROINPA became one of its principal suppliers of research
and development services. It competed and won various PITA projects due
to its accumulated experience and in-house technology developed during the
IBTA period. It stood well above other newly established, less experienced
NGOs.Most of the principal PROINPA researcherswhose careers had begun
in the early 1990s and who had attained post-graduate level stayed. SIBTA
projects, along with other projects sponsored by international cooperation
funding,9 allowed PROINPA to expand its activities to other Andean crops
and geographic areas, increasing its personnel from sixty to around 180
staff. In addition, as part of SINARGEAA, PROINPA received from the
state the potato and Andean grains gene banks in Toralapa (Cochabamba)
and Quipaquipani (La Paz) experimental stations and the funding for their
maintenance (Gandarillas et al., 2007).10 PROINPA is currently present in
thirty-six municipalities (especially concentrated in the Andean region). In
2011, it had 157 workers of whom 46 per cent were researchers, 33 per cent
consultants, usually hired to support research and extension projects, and 21
per cent administrative staff.
After becoming an NGO, PROINPA reduced its applied research projects
and focusedmore on so-called ‘research for development’ (in contrast to top-
down research and extension). This implied identifying local problems and
using this feedback to design research agendas. PROINPA’s success became
less dependent on the quality of its research and contribution to national
8. This and the next paragraph draw heavily from Garandillas et al. (2007).
9. International partners were CIP, IPGRI (International Plant Genetic Resources Institute),
CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture) and European and US universities.
10. PROINPA had three experimental stations: in Toralapa, El Paso in Cochabamba and The
Quipaquipani Center for Research and Training Facilities in the department of La Paz.
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The Politics of Agricultural Research in Bolivia 11
research priorities andmore on its ability to adapt or ‘tune’ research proposals
to funding sources. PROINPA shifted from simply applying technologies
(most of which had been designed or adopted during the IBTA period) to
more development-oriented projects that responded to central demands from
farmers and the market.
Technologies of the Self: Shaping a New Researcher
The shift in PROINPA from being a state programme, whose researchers
were civil servants, to an NGO, whose activities lacked a fixed mandate
but responded to international and national funding opportunities, was not
simply externally imposed but actively initiated fromwithin. This shift was a
form of self-regulation or a ‘technology of the self’, in Lemke’s words (2001:
12). Institutional change became paramount for PROINPA; an internal group
made the label of ‘change’ central and shaped a new PROINPA researcher
(Oros et al., 2002). A photo of the ‘change group’ printed inOros et al. (2002)
shows five relatively young researchers. Interacting with CIP and the New
Paradigm programme of ISNAR, PROINPA incorporated the innovation
system language in a series of strategic workshops focusing on institutional
change.
The following quote expresses this neoliberal form of governing as intro-
duced from above:
The greater freedom on the part of the Foundation [PROINPA] as an autonomous organi-
zation to set its own agenda, and the reliance on competitive funding, triggered institutional
innovation. Foundation staff commented in planning meetings that generating research re-
sults, publishing scientific articles and relying on intermediary organizations of technology
transfer were not enough. Strategic planning led the Foundation management to the conclu-
sion that it was imperative to build credibility with farmers and a broad range of stakeholders.
(Gandarillas et al., 2007: 267)
The language of freedom, autonomy, strategic planning, competitive fund-
ing and institutional innovation and staff who themselves seek closer contact
with ‘clients’ expresses very well the contemporary shift in research gov-
ernance. As part of the change process, researchers now had to propose
and manage new projects to maintain their research activities and finance
their own salaries. A researcher from PROINPA describes this change of
governance in the following words:
Demand is considered the origin of the research process. This was a fairly complicated topic
within PROINPA because we went from being employees who always received a monthly
payment to not having a guaranteed source of monthly income the following day. We had to
really change our ‘chip’ [mind set] and say ‘Well now I have to find it [salary] myself’. For
you to find it yourself you have to understand the demands, the work in your environment,
and give it what it needs from you. (Interview, 9 December 2011)
The change in the ‘chip’ suggested in this quote expresses the transition
process from a basic researchmodel supported by the state whichwas seen as
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12 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
‘vertical’ and ‘discipline-bound’ to a trans-disciplinary research model open
to the demands of producers, proposals and donors. PROINPA exchanged
the laboratory for the peasant community as the new space for action. To
win projects, investigators had to go out to different communities, identify
partners willing to participate in the research process, and jointly determine
their specific demands. To facilitate this process, PROINPA researchers had
to acquire new training in the social sciences and rural development. Ento-
mologists and phytopathologists had to ‘open’ their minds to new disciplines
so as to be more ‘sensitive’ to farmer demands.
Creating Demand
While implementing several projects, PROINPA researchers found that
meeting producer and association demands was not as simple as PITA and
SIBTA had portrayed (Bentley et al., 2004; Gandarillas et al., 2007). First,
while SIBTA assumed that producers were organized in associations and
were market oriented, PROINPA researchers found that the vast majority of
producers were organized in agrarian unions, which focused more on polit-
ical and community rights than productive rights. Organizing associations
that focused on productive themes involved an extra effort for PROINPA.
Second, generating new technology did not fall within SIBTA’s time and
budget allocation. PITA projects, for example, had a maximum duration
of 18 months, making research on perennial crops impossible. PROINPA
decided to work basically with already-existing technology and introduced
the notions of ‘implicit demand’ and ‘explicit demand’ where it assumed
that there is a demand for available technology (implicit demand) but that
producers generally are unable to make their demand explicit (Bentley et al.,
2004). Implicit demand was defined as ‘a need for research that people have
not requested, but that they recognize if explained or shown in an appropriate
form’ (Bentley et al., 2004). In this sense, implicit demands do not simply re-
spond to the researchers’ interests but are identified by the researcher through
analysis and reflection of local problems and are reaffirmed in collaboration
with the community or farmers. To identify implicit demands, researchers
organized workshops and exhibitions, among other activities, with commu-
nities and producer organizations, demonstrating available technology to see
if it was of interest to them. Available technology was metaphorically called
the slipper that would fit Cinderella.
Malleable Participation: Shifting the Objectives of Farmer Participation in
Morochata
Participation as a new technology of governing does not have a fixed mean-
ing. In PROINPA the need for participation and the specific tasks this in-
volved varied from potato technology innovation to market incorporation.
The language of participation gained prominence in PROINPA as part of the
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The Politics of Agricultural Research in Bolivia 13
IBTA restructurings. It first referred to participatory research in the sense
of including farmers and farmers’ knowledge in research design and imple-
mentation (to various degrees and at various moments). Interactions with
CIAT and CIP were crucial. As of the late 1980s, these centres worked
on developing participatory methodologies in natural resource management
in marginal agro-ecosystems in Latin America. Farmers and scientists col-
laborated as colleagues in jointly generating knowledge and technology in
response to farmer demands, whereby farmers had to diagnose their situ-
ation and experiment with and adapt possible solutions. Similar to Green
Revolution technology, scientists first developed new participatory method-
ologies and tested them on pilot sites in Central America and Colombia
before transferring them in a user-friendly format to other countries for dis-
semination (Gottret, 2007). Researchers from national research centres were
trained to implement and validate these methodologies in their respective
countries.
PROINPA adapted the participatory methodologies termed Local Agri-
cultural Research Committees (CIAL) and Field Farmers School (FFS). A
CIAL consists of farmers to whom the community delegates research on the
agricultural problem which most concerns them. CIAL members then relay
possible research recommendations back to the community. PROINPA re-
ceived support from CIAT, the Kellogg Foundation and FAO to work with
agrarian unions. The FFS is presented as a ‘people-centred approach’ which
helps to develop farmers’ ‘analytic abilities, critical thinking, and creativ-
ity so that they would learn to make better decisions’ (Kenmore, 2002).
Unlike previous top-down research and extension, CIAL and FFS are seen
as bottom-up strategies in which farmers acquire the necessary research
and problem-solving skills. Based on the logic of transforming farmers into
active and capable investigators, PROINPA initiated Participatory Plant
Breeding (PPB) in 1999 whereby farmers and scientists, in a ‘knowledge
dialogue’ between indigenous knowledge and western science, evaluate and
select genotypes according to farmers’ needs, available resources andmarket
demands (Almekinders et al., 2007; Gabriel et al., 2006).
An important case for PROINPA to apply PPB was that of Morochata.
PROINPA had already been working with small farmers of Quechua origin
in the municipality of Morochata since 1994, especially in the commu-
nities of Piusilla-San Isidro and Compan˜ı´a Pampa. Morochata, located in
the Bolivian inter-Andean valleys seventy kilometres from Cochabamba
city, has a population of 34,134 (in 2001) living in communities at alti-
tudes ranging from 2,750 to 4,250 meters above sea level. Agricultural pro-
duction connects with the markets of Quillacollo and Cochabamba cities.
Morochata farmers are organized in agrarian unions, which are a complex
amalgam that combines the structure of the Andean ayllu11 and the model of
11. The community of Piusilla-San Isidro still preserves the aynoqas indigenous rotary agricul-
tural system.
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14 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
agrarian unions of the Cochabamba valleys formed during the Agrarian Re-
formafter the 1952 revolution (CENDA, 2005;VanCott, 2008). PROINPA’s
participatory research in Morochata focused on finding alternatives to the
chemical control of late blight in potatoes (Phytophthora infestans) (Thiele
et al., 1997; Torrez et al., 1997). Morochata is known at national level for
potato production, especially for the native Waycha variety, which is much
appreciated for its quality and flavour. However, this variety is highly sus-
ceptible to late blight, with reported crop losses of up to 100 per cent.12
In the FFS and CIAL, farmers learned, among other things, that late blight
is a fungus with an invisible growth cycle. Farmers observed the fungus
growth process through microscopes and learned to recognize the disease as
‘a living organism’ and identify the best time for chemical control.
One of the activities most highlighted by PROINPA in Morochata has
been the work on participatory plant breeding, which during a five-year pe-
riod (1998–2002) was financed through short-term projects.13 In monthly
meetings with farmers, researchers explained the aims and activities of the
PPB methodology and how to carry out research. Farmers received train-
ing in breeding principles, flower morphology, botanic seed management,
seedling management and crop selection. Subsequent training sessions in-
cluded hybridization techniques, management and selection of seedlings
in household seedbeds and in the field to obtain new varieties. Farmers
identified and evaluated clones according to features such as plant height,
number of stems, flowering, and tuber characteristics such as shape, culi-
nary qualities, marketability, storability, resistance to late blight and yield.
Farmers planned their monitoring and evaluation of genotypes in field ac-
tivities and gave feedback to their communities through agrarian union
assemblies.
Participatory plant breeding in Morochata succeeded in generating enthu-
siastic participants, at least in the beginning, and in meeting the demand for
new varieties, similar to the landrace Waycha, but resistant to late blight.
Participating farmers called themselves ‘potato breeders’ and, paired with
‘experienced’ researchers, they carried out the breeding process. In inter-
views some of these farmers enthusiastically related the breeding techniques
they had mastered. During five years of participatory research, farmers and
researchers generated six new varieties, all of which are clear of virus and
four of which have been registered in the formal seed system. PPB par-
ticipants were also trained in seed production, using protected seedbeds to
multiply small amounts of high quality seed.14 They also shared the results
12. Late blight, the most important potato disease in humid zones in Bolivia, affects approxi-
mately 20,000 ha (Torrez et al., 1997).
13. Donors included PREDUZA (Proyecto de Resistencia Duradera en la Zona Andina), PRGA,
BMZ, IFAO, Fontangro, CIAT and CIP.
14. Protected seedbeds are boxes built of stone or adobes filled with fresh and clean soil and
fertilized with organic manure. They protect against frost and hail storms.
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The Politics of Agricultural Research in Bolivia 15
with their communities, explaining the advantages of the new varieties. Par-
ticipating farmers travelled to places as far as China and Japan to pass on
the success story of participatory research. PPB in Morochata also achieved
positive gains in encouraging the equal participation of men and women in
the PPB events. Some women interviewed still remember this experience
as a space that allowed them to gain the skills to interact publicly in com-
munity meetings. PPB participatory spaces were considered different from
decisionmaking in male-dominated agrarian union assemblies. Participating
researchers also called PPB in Morochata a ‘unique experiment’ (Gabriel
et al., 2004).
Although the PPB experience in Morochata is an interesting example of
what a ‘dialogue of knowledge’ between farmers and scientist can achieve,
it could not escape the conditions and context of rural life. After the initial
enthusiasm, the number of PPB participants dropped from year to year since
farmers felt that, apart from the training, there were few concrete results.
One researcher interviewed pointed out that initially farmers saw PROINPA
as a source of material goods or concrete productive projects to overcome
poverty. ‘They were expecting to receive, as a gift, fertilizers, seeds and
inputs’ (Interview, 25 September 2011). Instead, participating in training
sessions cost farmers time that could otherwise be dedicated to economic
activities. Furthermore, even though the new varieties responded to producer
demands and farmers had received training to reproduce them, their spread
was limited. Our field data show that only one of the eight farmers who
participated actively in the PPB in Compan˜ı´a Pampa reproduced seed potato
of the new varieties; in Piusilla three of the original six new varieties were
kept by at least three of the sixteen PPB participants15 (see also Puente-
Rodrı´guez, 2008). The following interview excerpt illustrates the research
leader’s struggle and frustration with the reproduction and dissemination of
the new varieties:
I didn’t think this would happen, that the farmers would lose the new seeds [obtained
during the PPB], but it happened. It also happens with the conventional programmes of plant
breeding. The great bottleneck is who takes the challenge of disseminating the varieties to
make a massive diffusion. In this sense, what we have tried to do is to construct a process,
because we don’t have one. We don’t have the capacity to do it: we have to join forces
with someone, be it the municipality, institutions, NGOs; someone to spread the technology.
(Interview, 26 September, 2011)
This PROINPA researcher’s comment suggests that both in conventional
and participatory breeding, the likelihood of success in spreading new va-
rieties depends on the goodwill not only of farmer but also of other actors.
Commercial seed multiplication by poor farmers is more difficult for pota-
toes than for, for example, grain or pulses, due to the quantities required,
15. A few farmers in Piusilla conserve and multiply the varieties Aurora, palta chola y puka
waycha, while in Compan˜ı´a Pampa we found a farmer producing puyjuni imilla y palta
chola (fieldwork observations).
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16 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
storage needs and transportation costs (Torrez et al., 1997). Replacing va-
rieties is also slower in these crops since potato seed attracts viruses and
other diseases, and its multiplication ratio is low (harvest ratio of 1: 20)
(Bentley and Vasques, 1998: 1). The procedures and costs of registering
varieties in the formal Bolivian seed system and of the viral clearance re-
quired to maintain this register are high and unaffordable for poor farmers.
Apart from the Empresa de Produccio´n de Semilla de Papa (SEPA – Com-
pany of Potato Seed Production), a semi-private seed enterprise in charge
of the sale and dissemination of commercial seeds, there are no public in-
stitutions that support the dissemination of new varieties to small farmers.
PROINPA approached SEPA, but they were reluctant to multiply these vari-
eties commercially due to uncertainty over their adoption and the economic
risks involved. PROINPA then proposed that the municipality of Morochata
should allocate local government resources on multiplying these improved
varieties, but without success.
Notwithstanding the limited possibilities of turning the PPB experience
into a far-reaching economic activity, PROINPA shifted further to work-
ing on development-oriented projects. If PROINPA’s participatory research
projects aimed to develop research skills among farmers, so they could
find solutions to their own agronomic problems, its participatory develop-
ment projects aimed to prepare farmers to cope in a neoliberal environment.
Rather than organizing its work around crop-specific knowledge, PROINPA
deployed teams that focused on solving problems in so-called ‘impact zones’
(poverty, disorganization, food supply, etc.) and on implementing institu-
tional and organizational innovations at the level of agro-food chains (Gan-
darillas et al., 2007). The reasons for PROINPA’s shift in focus to devel-
opment projects are twofold. First, few farmers were able to invest time in
research projects without receiving material support. Second, PROINPA, as
many other NGOs in Bolivia, was largely dependent on development aid
funds and SIBTA. It became more difficult to obtain funding for research
alone (even if this included participatory research) as donors prioritized
projects directed at poverty reduction.
The new emphasis on poverty reduction projects meant a shift towards
productive projects that aimed to integrate smallholders in larger agro-food
chains, and the application of two additional types of participatory method-
ologies — the first oriented to enhancing social control over development
projects, and the second to creating access to markets for low-income farm-
ers.
The first type included community-managed participatory monitoring and
evaluation (PM&E). It involved farmers in monitoring the progress of ex-
ternally funded innovations in order to generate a sense of co-responsibility
for the implementation and success of the intervention (Polar et al., 2007).
Farmer involvement was seen internationally as useful for monitoring the
deployment of funds. PM&E was also important for PROINPA in the con-
text of national politics as it contributed to enhancing legitimacy at a time
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The Politics of Agricultural Research in Bolivia 17
when PROINPA, like other NGOs, were being heavily criticized by social
movements and seen as allies of the economic neoliberal model. PROINPA
justified the importance of PM&E as follows:
In a ‘turbulent’ period [the civil unrest against neoliberal policies between 2000 and 2005]
in which social movements continually put pressure on government structures in search of
greater equality, representation, and legitimacy, it is necessary to incorporate social control
tools that allow technological innovation recipients [farmers] to freely express and transcend
up to decision-making levels (Polar et al., 2007: 1; emphasis by authors).
According to PROINPA, PM&E helps farmers to use ‘social control tools’
to channel their demands and express their disagreements with develop-
ment planning, rather than engaging in violent pressure and protests, which
were frequently employed by social movements in Bolivia. However, in
PROINPA’s projects, farmers’ views did not reach very far up the decision-
making ladder. The reason for this is because projects had already been
designed by PROINPA as a prerequisite for funding, so the flexibility to
change activities and resources was restricted. Furthermore, projects were
selected as the spaces in which farmers could participate and participation
was framed in terms of them being co-responsible for the success of the
projects. This limited the potential to link participation to different or larger
processes of social transformation.
The Participatory Market Polls (PMP), a second type of participatory
method, was also based on tools developed by CIAT and CIP. This method
aimed to empower farmers in the market and included a range of activities to
analyse different market opportunities, and to develop innovations (Mamani
et al., 2007). In Morochata, PROINPA supported the creation of the Aso-
ciacio´n de Productores Andinos (Association of Andean Farmers, APRA)
and provided training to strengthen market-oriented organization with funds
from Fontagro, the Papa Andina (Andean Potato) and Consorcio projects.
With APRA they established amarketing committee that identified newmar-
kets for potato products and promoted the consumption of native potatoes in
bigger cities.16 Participatory market polls, implemented between 2005 and
2008, allowed APRA farmers to visit supermarkets and regional markets to
determine the primary characteristics of native potatoes that potential buyers
required (quantity, quality, frequency of sale, presentation of the product,
etc.). APRA began to participate in market fairs and to sell different native
varieties of small potatoes called ‘gourmet potatoes’ or ‘morochatitas’, to
the main supermarkets of Cochabamba and La Paz. As the quantities bought
by supermarkets were low, weekly orders were rotated between the mem-
bers of the association. Gourmet potatoes offered an alternative income to
association members but one which was not enough for the eighteen APRA
members to make a living from.
16. APRA had also collaborated in the reintroduction of native potato varieties.
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18 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
PARTICIPATION: MAKING AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SOCIAL
WITHOUT POLITICS
In the previous sections we described a subtle, small-scale process of turning
the poor farmer into a new improved agent capable of operating success-
fully in a neoliberal environment: a free individual who can imagine new
technologies and productive activities and who can mobilize resources. The
participation and innovation thrust gave agricultural research a social slant,
moving it from the laboratory to the field, from thence to the farm household
and, finally, to the regional economy. Many documents point to the impact
of this shift (for example, Fontagro, 2013). However, beyond the level of
the individual, the impact on the wider political domain is more difficult to
conceptualize and act upon for the interveners. In this particular case, the
wider political picture refers not only to advancing neoliberalism but also
to its opposing forces. Here, we discuss two interrelated issues: individual
progress versus the group, and their implicit positioning in local and national
politics.
Preparing poor farmers for market integration may be successful in some
cases but not all. A local case is that of Don Jose´,17 one of the founding
members of APRA who has worked in PROINPA interventions since their
inception. Don Jose´ decided to become independent of the association and
to form his own company to market gourmet potatoes. Using the knowledge
he had acquired while contacting supermarkets for APRA, he expanded his
business to other cities and other products (vegetables and other Andean
roots: ulluco and arracacha). His company, registered as Papas Gourmet R©,
sells products to the country’s largest supermarkets. Thanks to the profits
of his company, his sons can go to college and he could buy a house in the
city of Quilacollo. Don Jose´’s individual entrepreneurship has brought him
into conflict with APRA as some members accused him of being disloyal
for taking away part of the potential market share of the association. Don
Jose´’s success is difficult to replicate for other APRA members. While
Don Jose´ expanded his business, at least four members of APRA were
forced to out-migrate temporarily due to their inability to secure a livelihood
from agriculture. Don Javier, an outstanding APRA leader who collaborated
closely with PROINPA, first emigrated to Argentina and later to Spain
where he was for the past six years. In our interview, he told us that his main
constraint was lack of land. Temporarymigration allowed him to savemoney
and to buy more land in his community. Stories of temporary and permanent
out-migration are repeated by many of the producers interviewed. Land has
become a valuable resource in Morochata. The community of Piusilla-San
17. Pseudonyms are used for all individuals mentioned in the article.
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Isidro is a typical case of Andeanminifundio (smallholding)18 andmigration.
Although individual PROINPA researchers are very familiar with this kind
of agrarian problem, the participatory methods do not, and probably cannot,
address them— and instead of producing a social benefit, most likely result
in individualized capital accumulation.
There are also frictions between PROINPA and political organizations
based on large group formations such as the agrarian unions. Unlike
PROINPA, agrarian unions in Morochata do not see capacity-building and
the promotion of the market and technical solutions as the prime engine of
rural development, as providing an effective solution to people’s problems.
Agrarian unions have focused their demands on state support primarily
on the basis of class (Ormachea, 2008; Postero, 2007). During the 1952
revolution, communities in Morochata struggled to expel large landown-
ers and recover their land (CENDA, 2005). During the neoliberal period,
and using the tools provided by the law of popular participation of 1994,
they petitioned the state around complementary demands such as autonomy,
indigenous rights and local political control. In the first years of this cen-
tury, agrarian unions were key actors in the civil protests against neoliberal
economic policies. They expressed their frustration with liberal democracy
and the neoliberal economic project for excluding indigenous populations
and peasants from its universal promises of participation, consensus and
representation in the decision-making process (Cordoba and Jansen, forth-
coming; Van Cott, 2008). In the 1990s, agrarian unions combined to form
the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, a political instrument that
brought Evo Morales to the presidency in 2005. These agrarian unions, as
a social movement, pursue a form of radical democracy in the sense given
by Mouffe (2005), in which citizenship is seen as part of a political identity
and not merely as a legal and entrepreneurial status related to markets as in
neoliberal notions of citizenship (Dagnino, 2003: 11). The tensions between
the agrarian unions’ post-neoliberal vision and PROINPA’s vision on ru-
ral development are highlighted in the following comment of a PROINPA
researcher. According to him, solutions for rural poverty come from ‘inno-
vative’ leaders and not from ‘claimant’ leaders (from the agrarian unions).
When asked about the differences between these two types of leader he
replied:
An example: Don Villazo´n is the representative of the political party MAS in Cochabamba
( . . . ). He developed claimant leadership qualities. Don Villazo´n says in his speech: ‘we
farmers need associations; we farmers are against GMOs [genetically modified organisms];
we need plant breeding and better varieties; NGOs clear out [from our communities]’. But
these are political leaders because in the end they do nothing. Being a claimant leader does
not mean they cannot innovate, but they use innovation as a clear attempt to ask the state for
18. The unions, whose membership is related to land, divide members into two classes: those
with land, who can have on average two hectares in different agro-ecological zones; and
those without, called ‘leftovers’.
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20 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
things but not to do things. ( . . . ) Who are the innovation leaders? A concrete example: you
must have talked to Don Jose´. Don Jose´ is an innovation leader, I don’t mean that he doesn’t
think politically, he does; but his efforts are innovative, they are a change in technology.
We refer to these as innovation leaders . . . ( . . . ) the [innovation] leader sees technological
change as an option, one of the primary options. (Interview, 6 December 2011; emphasis
added by the authors).
According to this researcher, farmers need to concentrate on innova-
tion rather than politics, since technological innovation contributes more
to poverty reduction. Politics is defined as making demands on the state,
while technological innovation is presented as being removed from politics,
driven by the farmers’ own agency and ‘empowerment’ (as capacity, without
power/politics). Moreover, politics can and should be avoided by farmers in
dealing with everyday issues. From the interview datamost researchers seem
to understand the political as referring to street blockades, demonstrations
and actions undertaken by social movements or as a product of political
projects manipulated by politicians’ personal or party interests. They con-
sider this kind of politics to lead to chaos in society and to be avoided. In
contrast, PROINPA’s participation without politics is presented as an ideal
type of ‘public sphere’ (Habermas, 1989) in which individuals communi-
cate in a power-free, rational way and exchange opinions so as to resolve
problems and produce agricultural improvements through consensus.
Despite the strong emphasis on separating politics from technology and in-
novation, in practice, innovation developers have had to collaborate at differ-
ent levels with the political environment around them. Over time, PROINPA
and the MAS government have found ways of realigning participatory in-
novation and new political realities. PROINPA modified its interventions
to meet agrarian union demands. It has done this by consulting unions over
the relevance of their projects and engaging union leaders in their activities.
The introduction of participatory monitoring and evaluation methodologies
discussed above was in part a response to the demand for accountability and
research relevance from these farmer organizations. PROINPA researchers
who were interviewed also stated that they had had to adapt their interven-
tions to fit new government priorities. On the other hand, despite its earlier
critique of NGO interventions, the MAS government increasingly relied on
PROINPA’s technical capacity, for example, to transfer the gene banks to
state agencies,19 since, as INIAF’s national director pointed out, PROINPA
is ‘a source of excellent researchers and we [INIAF] would like to work
together with those resources’ (Interview, August 2012). Hence, despite
disagreements on technology and the role of politics in rural development,
19. In 2008, theMAS government established the National Institute of Agricultural and Forestry
Innovation (INIAF), proclaiming the return of the state in agricultural research (INIAF,
2010). PROINPA co-operated with INIAF and transferred the two most important gene
banks (potatoes and Andean roots, and Quinoa and highland Andean grains) to INIAF and
trained INIAF’s staff to maintain these banks.
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The Politics of Agricultural Research in Bolivia 21
boundaries were crossed and participatory innovation was remodelled. This
illustrates an important aspect of the malleability of participation: depending
on the context, it can acquire a more neutral, technologist outlook or a more
political outlook.
CONCLUSIONS
In this article we analysed the emergence of participatory research and
development methods by PROINPA, an NGO and former state agency.
PROINPA employed participatory methods mainly to enhance managerial
effectiveness. The methods were seen as effective in developing new tech-
nologies (for example, new crop varieties arising from farmer involvement
in breeding) or integrating (some) farmers into the market. This type of
participation obscures macro-level inequalities and focuses on individual
responses to market conditions. As a micro-project, participatory research
embraces modes of thinking and action that are congruent with a neoliberal
restructuring of agricultural research and extension. As the participatory ap-
proach unfolded, it modified the identity and practices of the researchers,
turning them into development agents. Researchers only became success-
ful when they linked their research and development intervention to global
agendas (Jackson, 2005).
Does this mean that participation in a micro-project is simply an outcome
of macro-economic/political restructuring and globalizing international co-
operation? Was PROINPA merely an agent of neoliberalism? Our approach
differs in that it emphasized PROINPA’s self-organization and the coupling
of their notions of technical expertise to a changing environment and shift-
ing opportunities. PROINPA effectively managed three key issues. First,
participation led not only to research objectives desired by globalizers and
developers, but also generated these from below by local demands. Farmers
were not misled, they effectively ‘participated’. Participation is neither a
static nor a one-way process. Secondly, PROINPA had to make room for
two different types of politics. Participation or empowerment as capacity
building (of technical and economic expertise and skills) versus participa-
tion as a national project, or a political party project (in this case the MAS
government) had to be, and were, reconciled. Hence, despite the researchers’
formal anti-political stance, they had to play politics. Finally, PROINPAkept
the technical moment intact. Participation in research and development is
not only about social relations and processes. It cannot simply be assessed
in terms of power/knowledge but involves reconnecting people and matter
(crop varieties, inputs, soils): whether it makes sense to people, researchers
and farmers alike, depends on technological success. For this reason theMAS
governments, despite blaming NGO interventions of the PROINPA type as
neoliberal — and thereby negative — ended up making use of engineering
work as carried out by PROINPA.
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22 Diana Co´rdoba, Kees Jansen and Carolina Gonza´lez
These three key issues are the reason for adopting the notion ofmalleability
of participation in this article and of expanding its meaning beyond Corn-
wall’s (2006) original use. The term malleable does not just refer to bending
participation to fit an actor’s objective or to the idea that everyone may
perceive participation differently. Our point is that in practice, every form of
participation seeks a new balance between reshaped subjects, technical and
economic considerations, and political strategies and action (even though
one element may be discursively prioritized). As we have shown, this counts
for both politicized and managerial or ‘technical’ views on participation.
Acknowledgment
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Collaborative Crop
Research Programme (CCRP) of theMcKnight Foundation andWageningen
University. We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their
constructive suggestions and useful comments. Field research in Bolivia was
possible due to the invaluable help of PROINPA. Special thanks to Rolando
Oros, Julio Gabriel and Juan Vallejo. We also thank Carlos Perez, Monique
Nuijten, Wolfram Dressler, Vivian Polar and Edson Gandarillas for their
helpful comments on previous versions of thismanuscript. InMorochata, our
thanks go to the organizations and individuals who were extremely generous
with their time and shared with us their views on rural transformation.
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Diana Co´rdoba (dianamarcela.cordoba@gmail.com) is a researcher at the
Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group at Wageningen University,
the Netherlands and a visiting researcher at the International Centre for
Tropical Agriculture (www.dianacordoba.net). Her major research interests
include international development and agrarian change, and participatory
processes for community and technology development.
Kees Jansen (kees.jansen@wur.nl) is based at the Knowledge, Technol-
ogy and Innovation group in the Social Sciences Department at Wa-
geningen University (Hollandseweg 1, Wageningen, the Netherlands,
www.keesjansen.eu). His current work focuses on pesticide risk governance,
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The Politics of Agricultural Research in Bolivia 27
the multi-level governance of plant diseases, and political ecology. Among
his publications is Agribusiness and Society (2004).
Carolina Gonza´lez (c.gonzalez@cgiar.org) is an Agricultural Economics
with a joint position between the International Central for Tropical Agri-
culture, CIAT (Km. 17 recta Cali – Palmira, Cali, Colombia) and the In-
ternational Food Policy Research Institute, IFPRI. Her work focuses on
socioeconomic impact assessment and collective actions. Bio economics is
the topic of her forthcoming publication.