Protas and de Andrade state that rural extension efforts in developing nations should not expect the participation of "progressive" farmers to lead to larger participation of other farmers in adopting innovations. Van den Bar offers comments on the article. (SK)

Although failures have been encountered in the West African cooperative movement, farm cooperatives are an indispensable tool for rural development. They can generate an investment budget at the village level and can provide a stimulating framework for education. The Senegalese farm cooperative movement has experienced a number of problems. Three…

Discusses the use of participatory video in rural underdeveloped countries and describes a video project in Costa Rica that helped farmers with agricultural management and soil erosion problems. Video production considerations are described, and the use of role playing to supplement documentation is explained. (four references) (LRW)

This publication describes the formation and evolution of rural agribusiness (RA) in the southern hemisphere as a precondition for improving the lives of families in rural communities, and focuses on RA endeavors created by development projects in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. After a short introduction, the first section of this study…

The main objective of the program was to obtain qualitative data on the value of Radio Farm Forums (RFF), to both the farmers and the extension service, in terms of facilitating two-way communication between the two parties. The concept of RFF is to provide agricultural information through integrated use of mass media and interpersonal…

Discusses the importance of biological education in the rural development of under-developed countries. Argues that if the peasant farmer possessed even the most basic rudiments of biological knowledge he would be much more adaptable and amenable to technological innovation. Also describes how such an educational program might be implemented. (JR)

A switchover by any government to a more integrated, community-based approach to rural development will inevitably require the recruitment, training, and effective "backstopping" of large numbers of front-line workers. (SSH)

Reviews the Farmers' Functional Literacy Programme and various definitions of literacy, and describes a study in four villages of Deoria (India) to investigate the relationship between farmers' literacy status and their adoption of improved agricultural practices. Discusses the indicated trend toward agricultural improvement with rising literacy…

Discussion of agricultural and rural development extension systems in developing countries emphasizes the importance of a communication system and the goal of improvements in the socioeconomic status of farmers. The use of various instructional materials is discussed, constraints to development are reviewed, and the importance of feedback is…

A random sample of 150 farmers (75 participants and 75 non-participants in radio forums) from Lahore and Gujrat districts in West Pakistan were surveyed via personal interview in 1971 to determine whether there was a relationship between: certain socioeconomic variables and farmer forum participation; radio forums and agricultural change,…

Reviews experiments in Kenya and Nigeria attempting to modify the progressive-farmer strategy. Success requires that extension services recognize small farmers' ability to make their own rational decisions and involve farmers in planning and implementing extension programs. Available from: Rural Sociological Society, 325 Morgan Hall, University of…

Personal interviews were conducted in July, 1967, with 315 farm operators in rural Brazil where the local extension service had been in operation for more than four years. Patron-dependence (PD) was described as the subscription to a value system, according to the individual's position in the status structure, which produces dependency at…

Stating that rural extension education in developing countries has neglected small, poor farmers, the author suggests a model changing extension services approach to concentrate on motivating poor farmers to increase production and raise their standard of living through localized personal contact, providing useful technology involving the whole…

Chachoengsao Province and Lampang Province were selected in 1976 as sites for an "action survey" to identify appropriate program areas for rural women so that governmental and voluntary agencies could be assisted in planning. During December 994 families and 1,272 women (ranging from 15-70 years old) were surveyed. Interviews were…

The objectives of the state-of-the-art paper, second in a series on farming systems research (FSR) in the Third World, are to: (1) review the literature on farming systems; (2) evaluate farming systems research in international institutes and in national agricultural research systems in the Third World; and (3) recommend what can be done to…