FARMING SYSTEMS RESEARCH AND THE LAND-GRANT SYSTEM:
 TRANSFERRING ASSUMPTIONS OVERSEAS

 by Cornelia Butler Flora


 American agriculture owes much of its development and strength to the
 land-grant system. This system, based on the Jeffersonian ideal of participatory
 democracy, allows for members of the farm households who produce the bulk of our
 food and fiber to. relate directly to researchers and extension agents to make
 their needs known. Farmers' expressed needs then become the basis for developing
 technology and getting it out to the farm, in order to increase productivity and
 raise the level of living of farm families.

 That'model, so successful in the United States, has been built on a number
of conditions peculiar to the United States that we do not make explicit. These
conditions, which we take for granted, are both necessary and sufficient for our
system of research and extension to function well.

 Agricultural development has often by-passed the small, marginal farmer.
Even major technological breakthroughs in productivity, such as the "miracle"
varieties of wheat and rice, tended to accrue benefits to large farmers
(Pearse, 1980). Food imports are increasing in many middle-income countries,
sapping them of much needed foreign exchange, while in low-income countries,
food imports have not decreased and food aid remains a substantial portion of
their food imports (World Bank, 1981: 102-103).. Can the problems of small farm
agriculture, which produces the roots, tubers, and grains (wage foods) that are
the basic diet of most people in the world, be met by transferring U.S.
institutional arrangements (even more that U.S. technology) to developing
country settings?

 When we begin to try to work with national governments to improve overseas
agriculture through research and extension-particularly research and extension
aimed at the disadvantaged small, marginal farmer-we have to go back and look at
the conditions of agricultural development in the United States. We must better
understand what went on in the United States in order to know what we need to do
to help in developing a system of research and extension relating directly to
people's needs.

Conditions Contributing to U.S. Success

 In the United States, the mandate for research and determination of who
would control that research came through a political process. The laws setting
up the land-grant system and structuring the Department of Agriculture came, in
part, from the pressure of the farmers themselves, who understood the need for
improving farming processes in order to better their own lives (Rothstein, 1978).
The system was not imposed by colonial powers nor modeled after that already in
existence in a more developed country. An organized and vocal constituency for
research and extension developed-the first condition contributing to the
successful development of U.S. agriculturally-oriented institutions.

*Professor of Sociology and Program Associate, International Agriculture,
Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506. This paper is adapted from
one presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the Association of U.S.
University Directors of International Agricultural Programs, Lincoln, Nebraska,
June 8-10, 1982.