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usually are not, those which will be experienced by the particular farmer who

is contemplating the new adoption or innovation. Associated with each experiment

station and field or farm trial are certain expected variations in

results, i.e., each practice or each new variety has a certain predictable varia-

tion in actual yield even under the conditions of the experiment station or field

trial. But this expected variance in yield is not the same as the variance (ex-

pected or derived) from the application of these techniques or new inputs on a

particular farm. Moreover, change agents who are promoting the new technology

usually sell it in terms of the maximum experiment station yield or the average

yields obtained by the station. "This new variety gave twice the yield which you

(the farmer) are now getting."

 The typical subsistence or peasant farmer has his own subjective rate of

discount for the introduction of a new technology on his farm. Despite its

testing by the central, regional or local experiment station, or even on neigh-

boring farmers' fields, the. subsistence farmer has learned from bitter, historical

experience to be wary of "technological gifts," which as he sees them have been

insufficiently adapted and evaluated for his particular situation. The subsis-

tence farmer has learned that any new recommended technological introduction has

associated with it a different expected variance on his fields -- a variance

which may be wider than that on the fields of the research station. Under these

circumstances the determining fact is the comparison between the expected variance

of the new technology and the known variance of the traditional technology. When-

ever a change agent approaches a farmer with a new technology the farmer examines

the proposed changes within the framework of known vs. unknown expectations. He

compares the expected probabilities from continuing as he has done in the past

with its given degrees of risk and uncertainty, on the one hand, with the expected