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be based primarily on job performance.

 An awkward contradiction exists with regard to salary scales for

extension agents. On the one hand, higher salaries might seem to be a

logical incentive for more diligent performance and to attract better

trained personnel. On the other hand, in some situations if there are no

countervailing pressures, such an approach can result in attracting

highly educated urbanites and thereby increase the economic and cultural

gap between farmer and extension agent. This can impede communication.

 There is a similar contradiction with regard to the training of

extension agents. In the absence of effective management and suitable

incentives, more education can be counter-productive. Leonard found that

there is an optimal amount of training; extension agents with more

training may expect more promotions than realistic, and become frustrated

and less effective.2 Indeed, in some projects in Africa, farmers and

farmers' sons have been given only a few weeks of training and have been

effective in communicating specific information to other farmers..

 While there are advantages in a centralized extension agency,

there are inevitable problems as well. No matter how well it is managed,

it is difficult to be sensitive to the extreme diversity of natural

environments. Thus, from this point of view, the risk of the training

and visit system or of employing people with a few week's training is

that despite short-term successes, these approaches may not encourage an

inherent capacity to learn or respond to changing requirements over

space and time. This may not be a serious problem in the plains of India


 Uma Lele, p. 72.

 2Leonard, pp. 121-22.