and are quick to communicate upward the farmer's concerns. If, however,

the extension system is controlled by the central government to develop

specific crops for urban consumption or export, the extension system will

see its task is to convince farmers to try specific practices, and not to

understand the farmers' perspectives.

 As extension services become specialized, they are staffed with

educated people. In many countries, very few rural residents have access

to formal education, so extension services may become staffed with people

with urban backgrounds. There is a tendency for the urban educated

people to presume an ignorance and hostility to innovation among the back-

ward, traditional farmer.1 This justifies a program designed to instruct

and lead the farmer. This tendency is reinforced by general bureaucratic

compulsion to justify rather high salaries of government employees

relative to farmers. Of course, this bureaucratic interest merges with

broader social forces eager to justify the privileges of the educated

elite.

 Ironically, some of these negative tendencies of an extension
system may be obscured and even reinforced by a highly energetic, patriotic

spirit within the system. However, at issue is not the dedication,

probity, or aspirations of extension agents--which can be highly variable

and very important--but rather their underlying attitude to farmers and

their conception of their roles in relation to farmers.

 In the U.S. these types of problems were minimized by the recruit-

ment procedures of extension programs, which essentially require that


 Rene Dumont, "Training for Rural Development, the Gulf between
Farm and Town," in Training for Agriculture and Rural Development (Rome:
FAO, 1976), pp. 15-17