En busca de la genética guerrera. Segunda Guerra Mundial, cooperación agrícola y Revolución Verde en la agricultura de Costa Rica

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between World War II and the beginning of agricultural modernisation in Costa Rica. To this end, we propose to study this relationship from a semantic and contextual perspective. Within the semantic dimension, we review the importance of war semantics in the mythical discourse of revolution, considering that, in it, war was assumed as a metaphorical rather than a historical element. From the contextual perspective, we analyse the link between World War II and the development of agricultural programmes coordinated by the United States of America in Mexico and Costa Rica. The study is based on the principle that, in the Costa Rican case, this programme laid the groundwork for the future development of the green revolution through programmes of agricultural extension, pest control and chemicalization. These, in turn, paved the way for the widespread application of technology in the 60s and 70s. Different sources have been reviewed to support such conclusions, including annual reports of U.S. foundations, annual proceedings of Costa Rican public institutions, archives, interviews and contemporary agricultural magazines.