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standard of living described earlier. Given a particular Sms, a typical peasant

family will strive to reach the communal or societal achievement standard, Sas'

and most important it will struggle to avoid the Sms which is the minimum sub-

sistence standard. Even though the Pm is considerably lower than most individuals

realize, the crucial fact is that each farm family resists having a level of

living which is significantly below the Sms. In other words, it is not so much

whether the ingredients are nutritionally adequate for human physical survival

-- viz. roots and berries -- as it is the accepted community and societal standards

for "survival."

 The next element in the farmer's decision-making package are the expected

variances in yield and hence in output and income associated with existing prac-

tices. The agricultural technology currently employed by most subsistence and

peasant farmers is traditional in the sense that it has been handed down from one

generation to the next. The farmer has a basis for determining the expected

variance in yield and in income derived from the experience of his father,

grandfather, and great grandfather. Hence, he knows what to expect in good,

average, and poor years. On the whole, these expected variances are not only

real, they are the product of centuries of experimentation by trial and error.

 The final ingredient in the picture is the expected variances which attach

 to the new technology and practices. The variances in yield are those which are

 derived from the experiment station. From the farmer's viewpoint there is no


 1/ An interesting related observation is the frequent finding that in areas
 which suffer occasional droughts the local traditional varieties are often
 drought resistant at the expense of not providing high yields in good years.
 The farmers have chosen varieties which offer an insurance against severe loss
 or ruin. My colleague, Arthur T. Mosher, has also pointed out another inter-
 esting example from North India:where irrigation is not available the farmers
 follow a practice of sowing wheat and gram or barley and gram mixed together
 in the same field. If the season is "good" (adequate rainfall), the wheat or
 barley will yield well. But if the season is unfavorable, the gram will still
 mature and help compensate for poor wheat or barley yield.