some state subsidy. From 1911 to 1935, the agricultural associations

hired 5,200 to 14,000 technicians. After 1948, extension services were

consolidated under direct government sponsorship.

 In China, also, major efforts have been made to assure that the

research and extension system absorbs the insight of ordinary farmers.l

Advanced farmers have travelled to other localities to explain their

techniques and have joined research stations to demonstrate and test their

methods for high production. At the same time scientists have been

posted periodically to work directly with farmers in local testing

stations which are sponsored by communes, brigades and teams. These

local stations are staffed with a combination of young school graduates

and mature, advanced farmers.

 While these two experiences suggest some ways of maximizing farmer

input for extension services, there are certainly far more approaches which

can be tried. In the Basic Village Education Project in Guatemala, the

monitors who organized group meetings to discuss radio broadcasts provided

weekly feedback reports to the producers of the radio programs. It is

unlikely that the radio broadcasts alone, without this organized feedback

to assure relevance, would have been so effective.

 Another method of providing feedback is being tried in Chile,

in which various extension agencies will compete to provide extension

services. The government gives vouchers to farmers, which they use for

the extension agency of their choice--the regular government system or


 Benedict Stavis, Making Green Revolutions: The Politics of
Agricultural Development in China (Ithaca: Cornell Rural Development
Committee, 1974), pp. 172-89, and "Agricultural Research and Extension
Services in China," World Development 6:5 (May 1978), pp. 631-45.

 2Nesman, "Basic Village Education," p. 124-125.