countries conformed to the model outlined earlier, the agricultural technology being
developed from the sucessful adaption of imported techniques, materials and machinery.
In both areas the expansion of output was achieved mainly through the extension of the
area under cultivation and the higher yieldsavailable from the exploitation of virgin soils.
The turn of the century sawa deterioration in Australian agriculture. Wheat yields
were low and falling, the carrying capacity of the pasturewas falling and roíl exhaustion
was becoming an obvious problem.
14
The various colonial government had created
agricultural research establishments in the latter part of the century. Profesrors Custance
and Lowrie of the Roseworthy Agricultural College in South Australia had advocated the
use of superphosphate to correct the phosphate deficiency in Australian roils in the 1880s
and by the turn of the century the manufacture of superphosphate was under way in
Australia and the need to apply fertilizer to Australian roils was beíng generally
recognized.
15
There was airo a turn to the purposeful, scientific breeding of new straints
of wheat, resistant to specific diseases and suited to particular localities.
The expansive phase in Australian agriculture was coming to an end and a new era
based on the deliberate application of scientific principies was being ushered in the new
technology based on restoring the fertility of the roíl and breeding higher yielding plant
varieties suited to particular regions resulted in a doublirYJ of the Australianwheat yield
between 1900 and 193). From then until about 1950 yields remained stable. Since 1950
Australian agriculture experienced a new technological revolution based on legumenous
pasture rotations and the correction of trace element deficiencies in the soil which has
resulted in a sharp upward trend in production.
16
In Argentina the expansive phase continued until the end of the 1920s and from
1930 the area of land used in rural activities remained fairly constant and total output
increased only marginally.17 The extremely rich roilsof the Pampa were not as subject to
nutrient depletion as the Australian roils and the practice of tenant farming whereby
farmers took two or three crops of wheat and moved on, leaving the fields rown down
alfalfa for cattle pastures provided a natural restoration of the nitrogen level of the roi!.
The need for scientific applications was not as urgent in the first three decades of the
present century as in Australia. But with the closing of the Pampean frontier about 193)
Argentina was ill prepared to enter the age of science based agriculture. The tenancy
system which had served well enough in the expansive phase was ill equipped for the
more settled and intensive farming of the new era, as were the farmers themselves.
Although, in degree of mechanization Argentina agriculture was comparable to
Australia ,1!1 other techno !ogical aspects had been neglected.
Compared with Argentina, Australia has a long history of active, government
supported scientific research in the rural sector. An Argentinian economist hasatributed
Australia's superior agricultura! productivity to this factor. 19 Not only is there a long
14
15
16
17
111
19
184
D.B. Williams. (Ed) Agriculture in the Australian Economy (Sydney University Press. 1967) p.
57.
A.R. Callaghan, A.J. Millington, The Wheat Industry in Australia. !Angus,and Robert9Jn,
Sydney, 1956) p. 91-93.
Williams, op.
cit.,
p. 72.
Díaz Alejandro. Essays in the Economic History of the Argentina Republic (Yale University
Press, New Haven, 1970), p. 167.
G. di Tella. M. Zymelman. Las Etapas del desarrollo económico Argentino. (Paídos. Buenos
Aires. 1973), p. 82.
Héctor
lo
Dieguez. "Argentina y Australia: Algunos aspectos de su Desarrollo Económico
comparado" Desarrollo Económico (Enero-Marzo, 1969, VoL 8. NO 32) P. 561.
