miracles or do everything. They can help people learn rigorous analytical

techniques to evaluate experiments, they can help provide inputs and deliver

credit. Of course, extension may not be able to do all these tasks simu-

ltaneously; a choice must be made about the priorities of these and other

potential roles.

 However, extension programs by themselves in the absence of land

 tenure reforms and vigorous, egalitarian.input supply programs, should not be
 expected
/to reverse the trend towards concentration of assets in the rural society,

or to save the small, poor, or inefficient farmer. They can however,

assure that the small farmer is not disadvantaged with regard to access

to information. In some cases the extension system may have no choice

butto urge poor farmers to quit the farming profession. Nor can exten-

sion do much to strengthen the whole rural sector vis-a-vis the urban

sector. Such factors are deeply entwined with the whole political struc-

ture, and extension can affect these matters only marginally, and only when

conscious concerted efforts are made to do.so. It must be accepted that

the energy available in extension systems is usually very small compared

to the momentum of existing economic and social changes. If the energy

is focused in space and time (for example, on a small demonstration area)

some impact can be visible, some problems will become more apparent, and

some people will become better educated in these issues. But realism al-

lows only limited expectations about the social changes that can be im-

posed by an extension system; there is no point in criticizing small,

underfunded, inadequately staffed, politically weak extension systems for

inability to make major changes in social and economic structure.