so obvious. If tractors, threshers or other machines are sensible, group

purchase and utilization can assure that benefits are widely shared and

can reduce the likelihood that the first individual purchaser of machines

will use his new profits to buy out his neighbors, who can no longer com-

pete with him. If improvements in livestock management are suggested --

such as regulated grazing and breeding or control of communicable livestock

diseases -- cooperative action by many farmers is needed. Group action by

farmers may also be useful in controlling plant diseases and pests, in-

cluding rodents. For improvements in general sanitation, which are crucial

for improved human health, some collective actions (or at least restraints)

are needed. For these types of activities and others, group organization

can be very helpful, and extension work can both be facilitated by groups

and help form the groups.

 At a broader, more political level, when farmers are organized in

groups, they are more likely to exercise power over the personnel and

policies of the extension system.

When organized, the farmers are better able to fund local extension

activities and to participate in local experiments by contributing land

and their own knowledge.

 At the broadest, philosophical level, the animation rurale projects

in former French colonies are "based on the belief that man is by nature a

social animal who finds individual fulfillment through participating in

activities which lead to the development of his community." This view

has its roots in both Catholic humanism and African socialism.



 Jeanne Marie Moulton, Animation Rurale; Education for Rural
Development (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Center for International
Education, 1977), p. 20-21.