exploration and trade missions carried seeds with them, and often had

botanists to identify useful new crops; but extension agents were not

required.

 Often, however, an extension system can make a crucial initial
input into the spontaneous extension system. It can play a catalytic
role in energizing the spontaneous extension system. Moreover, in some
social environments, spontaneous extension works poorly. When a village
(or country) is divided by class, religion, caste, linguistic, factional
cleavages, or ecological factors (mountains, flooded fields), exchange of
farming information between families may be very limited. Formal extension
programs could have a major impact in such a situation. Unfortunately,
such places sometimes receive less extension contact because the extension
agents find it less comfortable to work in such a social environment.1
 Spontaneous extension may also be slow in a village that has such
strong cultural homogeneity and unity that no one is willing to deviate
from the norm and try an innovation. An innovator may risk becoming
socially isolated-, and may even be accused of witchcraft.2 In Java, one
journalist writes, "What the Javanese discovered is what every anthropologist
(but almost no development economist) knows: The most potent force in
every village is not government fiat but rather it is a fear of the neighbors'
gossipy censure or 'What will people say?'"3 In such a case, spontaneous


 This experience was revealed in careful studies of two Indian
villages. J.P. Hrabovsky and T.K. Moulik, "Economic and Social Factors
Associated with the Adoption of an Improved Implement: A Study of the
Olpad Thresher in India," Agricultural Development Council paper, 1967,
pp. 8-9.
 Lele, p. 76.

 Richard Critchfield, "More Food, Fewer Months, Java Confounds
the Doomsayers," The Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 24, 1978, p. B.12.