Cases should follow this general 1. Begin with description of the problem. 2. Present the general design solution. For example will the plow be gas powered, animal, human, electric etc. You should also tell me why you settled on that general approach. 3. Discuss the various moral aspects of realizing your design solution. You should draw on the concepts and ideas that have been discussed through out the text. Note: Some information about the people the plow is intended to help has been provided in the case. You may (though it is not required) bring in any outside sources you may need to defend you design solution/process etc., just make sure you cite them in the paper. Also, please keep in mind that this is in many ways a creative exercise. I am not looking for a detailed design of a plow, rather I want to see that you have considered various ways morality could enter into a design solution.

Paper should be double-spaced Single space your name class etc. 1" margins (top, bottom, left, right) 12pt. standard font (Courier Prime, Times New Roman, Garamond, Hoefler, etc.) 3 1/2 to 4 pages in length (if you absolutely must write more you may go to 5 pages—but I will stop reading after 5) In the “Plow for Mexican Peasant Workers” scenario, students are to discuss the process they would go through in designing a plow. You will of course give some general description of the type of plow you think would be best, but I am not so much interested in your presenting an actual design. I am interested to know what MORAL considerations would go into your design process and solution. Synopsis In Mexico, as in many third-world countries, those who are engaged in agriculture can be roughly divided into two groups: large landowners and small subsistence farmers. For the most part, the large landowners have done a good job of keeping up with technological changes, and they have had the financial ability to utilize those changes. For the poor farmers, the situation has been very different. While the Mexican government has taken some steps towards land redistribution, 65% of the farmers hold less than 5 hectares of land. This diminishes the advantage of technology, which usually depends upon scale. Further, the land owned by these farmers is in the hills and mountainous terrain. It’s difficult to transport and manipulate large machinery in these areas. Finally, water projects for increasing irrigation have generally not benefited the rural population, which remains dependent on the rains. If large farms can achieve efficiencies of scale, small farms will be unable to compete and may eventually be driven out of business. One might argue that it is better to let these small farmers get out of the agricultural business altogether. By allowing large farms to produce the agricultural needs for Mexico, the peasants can be moved to populated areas to work in industry. Yet this solution seems patently wrong for three reasons. First, agrarianism is an important part of the Mexican cultural heritage. Many peasants want to remain close to the land and to continue to be a part of rural life. Second, the agrarian economy can support many more individuals than the industrial sector of Mexico. Prior to the 1970’s, Mexico’s economy was expanding due to the influx of petro-dollars, and advances were being made in reorienting Mexico’s population towards a Western model. However, with the rise of inflation in the seventies, and a crushing foreign debt load, those advances stopped. Thus, if a way could be found to increase agricultural yields without forcing rural flight, the economy as a whole would benefit. Finally, the agricultural sector has had difficulty in recent years meeting goals of self-sufficiency for production of staple crops, such as maize and beans. It would be highly desirable, then, to increase yields on all available farmland. Since supporting small farms is important to Mexico’s immediate future, making small farming more efficient is an immediate need. One way of doing this is by producing a small plow that is appropriate for subsistence farming. Such a plow might increase crop yields and also lessen the backbreaking work of hand farming. The development of a small plow might not be an unmixed blessing, however. Your instructor will present some reasons for thinking such a development might have negative effects. The following discussion presents some of the relevant considerations. A first consideration for anyone interested in mechanizing small farming is that the rural economy places considerable value on animal ownership. Draft animals can be used for plowing and transport, and the calves can be sold for meat. In fact, a draft animal is an important asset for the farmer, because it can be sold if he is in financial distress. How a mechanization project affects animal ownership is thus an important consideration. A second consideration is that the small farmer is very risk averse. More technologically advanced farming might provide 120 bushels one year and 25 bushels the next, whereas less advanced farming might produce 60 bushels of maize in a good year and 50 in a bad year. Given the choice between these two options, the small farmer would probably choose the second. This is because the small farmer is interested first in providing for his family, and only then selling for profit. Thus, if the costs of operation of a plow are too high, or detrimental to the soil or has other features tending to increase risk, farmers may not adopt it. Even if the plow is provided to them without charge, they may not accept it if it is perceived as substantially increasing risk. Another consideration is that care should be taken lest technology is seen as foreign, or as an affront to the culture of the farmers. Artifacts seen as foreign sometimes convey the wrong cultural message: “their way is good and ours is bad.” This tends to undermine cultural identity and social solidarity. Technological artifacts with which people can identify, and which can be seen as supportive rather than destructive of their culture, will be more likely to be accepted. The history of the Loriana stove is often used by anthropologist as an example of the problems of introducing Western technology into non-Western societies. The stove is twice as efficient in its use of wood fuel as the indigenous Guatemalan peasant stove. But the Mayan Indians think of it as something non-Indian. The use of the stove is interpreted as an admission that the technology of others – i. e. of the Spanish and North Americans – is superior to Indian ways. There is another problem with the Loriana stove that emphasizes the importance of knowing the audience for whom one is designing. The stove gives off less heat than the traditional Indian method of cooking. Even though this is connected with its greater efficiency, it has a disadvantage. The main heating source of Indian housing is the stove. Use of the Loriana stove by Indians in the mountains regions of Guatemala means their homes are cold. If the designers had known this, they might have decided that making a more efficient stove should not be one of the design goals. They might have even decided that the Indians did not need a new stove. Here is a final consideration. One means used to assist in making decisions about technology is cost/benefit analysis or highest utility analysis. This method requires the engineer to select the design option which will produce the greatest benefits relative to cost. This method has come under considerable criticism, however. One criticism is that the benefits could be maximized without being equitably distributed. The best way to maximize the total benefit from the plow might be to provide plows to the most ambitious and capable of the small farmers. They would probably use the plow most efficiently. The plow might also enable the more capable farmers to become even wealthier, relative to their less capable and ambitious neighbors. The overall utility might be highest, yet the distribution of wealth resulting from this approach could be even more uneven. One might argue that rewarding efficiency is a good thing for the society, but this is a value judgment. The important thing to keep in mind is that introducing Western technology can initiate important social changes. We tend to assume that technological improvement is always a good thing. Unfortunately, introducing new technology may destroy or seriously modify a culture, and this may or may not be desirable. Cost/benefit analysis is only useful if it can specify and quantify all relevant factors in a decision. Obviously we do not have perfect information for any case, but if cost/benefit analysis systematically undervalues certain aspects, such as cultural or moral factors (as Thompson argues), then the decision made on the basis of cost/benefit analysis will be flawed. In the end, the choices made in designing the plow are going to have many ramifications. One writer has pointed out that: “the telling fact is that agricultural science and technology, like all technologies, have no inherent value; their human value is manifested only by the results achieved when they are properly applied to serve the need for which they were created.” Relevant Tractor Farming Data Size and Costs of Tractor-Powered Operations Concept Farm Size (ha) 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 Optimum tractor size (hp) 1.5 2.3 3.9 7.0 12.9 24.8 48.5 Annual fixed cost (kg/ha) 375 287 244 219 202 194 189 Annual labor costs (kg/ha) 279 176 105 59 32 17 9 Annual cash capital costs (kg/ha) 745 565 446 373 330 307 294 Annual timeliness losses (kg/hg) 93 118 140 158 171 178 182 Total Annual Cost (kg/ha) 838 683 586 531 501 485 476 Annual hours of operation 186 235 280 316 341 363 367 Cash and capital costs per unit work (kg/hp-hr) 2.71 2.05 1.62 1.36 1.20 1.12 1.07 Distribution of the Cultivated Area According to Stages of Mechanization in 1975 Concept Stage of Mechanization Manual Work Draught Animals Tractors Total Developing Countries Cultivated area 106 ha 125 250 104 479 Relative percentage % 26 52 22 100 Developed Countries Cultivated area 106 ha 44 63 537 644 Relative percentage % 7 11 82 100 World Cultivated area 106 ha 169 313 641 1123 Relative percentage 15 28 57 100 NOTE: Both tables were obtained from: FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture, 1988.