local officials can have some influence on hiring, salaries, and programs.

More important, it is presumed that social pressure will be placed on

extension personnel to serve local needs.

 Decentralized systems have their own types of problems. If

extension agent's salaries are determined locally, there may be wide,

unjustified differences in salary levels, that contribute to rivalry,

jealousy, and poor morale. More important, from an equity point of

view, it is likely that the wealthy regions will pay their agents more,

while the poor regions will pay less; thus the regions which need

energetic agents most desperately may be unable to attract the best

agents. Both in Taiwan and the U.S., there are strong pressures to

reduce local salary differences of extension agents to permit more

equality and stability in the career ladder of extension agents.

 Another problem with the decentralized system is maintaining

high levels of technical competence in the extension agents. Local

people may not realize the types of innovations that are possible, and

therefore choose extension agents with only limited capabilities.

Likewise, extension agents in such a situation may feel obligated

to spend all their time visiting farmers, and may fail to reserve

some time for continued technical training. In mainland China, the

extension system was under central control from 1962 until the early

1970's and it would not be surprising if centralizing influences

reemerge in the next few years as China stresses scientific and tech-

nical advance.

 The most serious problem with decentralization and local

farmer control is that it does not fully or automatically solve equity

problems and may even aggravate them. If the rural sector is highly