Abstract
Narratives of improved seed varieties often focus on scientists, controlled experimental fields, or laboratories. Seldom are farmers the protagonists of seed experimentation histories. Yet what happens when not-yet-released seeds appear in a farmer’s field and the blame is placed on the farmer—and not the lab from which the seeds “escaped”? How do we tell that story? More important, how has focusing on seeds—the objects themselves—taken our attention away from the historical human element in nontraditional experimental fields? This essay looks at an alleged theft of experimental seeds in a southern Sonoran field and the curious aftermath that in 1970 necessitated the intervention of local and federal authorities and the expertise of both domestic and foreign scientists, such as Norman Borlaug.
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