One of the most important potential benefits of organizing farmers

 into groups is that it becomes feasible to train individual farmers who are

 selected by and responsible to a group of farmers. Such persons can be

 extremely effective in interpreting new ideas to farmers and in bringing

 farmers' problems and observations to the research system. Unlike govern-

 ment-employed extension agents, the trained farmer stays in the village,

 is not seeking promotion to urban areas, and is accessible at all times

 to villagers. If this person is selected by a group of farmers, it is

 likely that social pressures will increase his likelihood to share quickly

 and fully information about modern technology with his neighbors.

 From a financial point of view there are important advantages. Such

 a person can be paid a salary relative to a farmer's income, not relative to

 bureaucrats' salaries. Moreover, part or all of the local person's salary

 can be financed by the farmers' group, perhaps through the profits of credit,

 marketing, or grain processing activities, as the extension agents of Taiwan's

 farmers' association are paid. In Finland, specialized voluntary associations

 of farmers have been created to provide technical assistance in a wide range

 of areas -- marketing and purchasing, cattle raising, forestry, management,

 etc. Farmers pay for individualized specific services.l Both the lower

 salaries and local, self-financing which are possible through this approach

 can greatly reduce recurrent government expenditures on an extension system

/ and make it less likely that financial constraints will prevent expansion of

 an effective system.

 The training of representatives of groups of farmers has, in fact,

 been the cornerstone of several extension programs. The extension program


 1Nils Westermarck, Finnish Agriculture (Helsinki: Kirjayhtyna,
 1969), p. 57-71.