Extension Worker (VEW) can be working with eight groups of farmers, each

with 40-150 farmers, or a total of 300-1,200 farmers. A fully trained

Agricultural Extension officer would be responsible for eight VEW, so

would be overseeing extension activities of 2,500-10,000 farmers. In

the absence of group organization, it would be difficult for an agent to

reach effectively a fraction of these numbers. In the intensive cash-

crop schemes, an agent normally serves only a few hundred farmers.

 Even in projects stressing agricultural extension via radio

broadcasts, it appears that supplementing the radio programs with weekly

group forums organized by a "monitor" added to the impact. When the

monitor is backstopped by an agronomist, the effectiveness seems even

higher.1

 As suggested earlier, groups can also be utilized in the process

of helping people to discover their own knowledge and power.2 The group

may be for literacy training or grain storage (as suggested above) or may

be shaped around general agricultural technology needs; it might be radio

listening group or film making group.

 There are, of course, problems inherent in the notion of organizing

groups. The theory of using groups generally assumes that the groups are

characterized by an internal cohesion, a sense of mutual obligation, and a

rough equality. It is presumed that because group actions are rational, it

is rational for every individual to participate in the group. These pre-

sumptions are frequently erroneous.


 1Edgar G. Nesman, "The Basic Village Education Project: Guatemala,"
 pp. 121-131.

 2Paulo Freire, Peadogogy of the Oppressed.