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Allow me to join the discussion. First I would like all participants to careful consider the possibility that we made a major misdiagnosis of the plight of the smallholder very early and have not fully rectified the situation. Rockefeller Hypothesis I I think we are still operating under what I will call the Rockefeller Hypothesis. I say that because it appears to come from some of the early work of the Rockefeller Foundation when they were establishing IRRI and converting their Mexico program into CYMMYT. The hypothesis actual provide a reasonable starting point, and it is important to have a starting point based in previous experience which was farming in the US particularly Upstate New York where Cornell is located. The basic hypothesis was a correct observation that farmers were not effectively utilizing their physical environment. This was then attributed farmers being risk aversive and thus delaying crop establishment for a month or more waiting for more favorable and assured rain. This concept continues today as noted by the reference to risk in the preliminary documents provided to this group. What is overlooked here is the time required for basic crop establishment. For most smallholders this takes up to 8 weeks starting with the very first opportunity. Thus they are and have always been maximizing the risk they are taking. However, this is essential if there is any hope of completing crop establishment in any reasonable time and there survival is dependent on it. Underlying Approaches Underlying this is way agronomist and economist look at agriculture. The agronomist develops and promotes technology based on small plot development and assumes the farmers have the mean to extend this to most if not all their holdings. The economist looks at the commodity as the economic unit and then in order to keep the number reasonable, averages over different parcels even when grown to the same crop. Thus averaging parcels that range over 8 weeks gives the stereotypical delay of 4 weeks. If the economists accepted the parcel of land as the economic unit they might appreciate the substantial spread in activities with substantially different management applied to different parcels of the same crop depending on the delay in establishing them. Real Constraint If this is the case the real constraint, that remains mostly unaddressed, is the limited resources, mostly labor, smallholders have to manage their land in a timely enough manner to take full advantage of their physical environment potential. This fairly quickly translates into mechanization and the need to make mechanization available to smallholders. This in no way implies smallholder should become tractor owners, but the need for village based micro-enterprises to provide smallholders tractors on custom contract. However, the tractors are a mobile resource rather than an internal one and have to be evaluated on a community basis rather then individual farm base. Rockefeller Hypothesis II This bring up the second Rockefeller Hypothesis. That has been the focus on the family farm as the economic unit and decision making entity. While this is true for all discretionary decision often the farmer does not have discretionary decision but highly compromised decisions and goes with a flow of events largely beyond their control. This is no more apparent than when dependent on contract tillage as they have lost control of the most fundamental of all crop management activities, the planting date. I would like to leave it at this for the time being and get some reaction before I continue. Respectively submitted. Dick Tinsley ============================================================= To send a reply to this message that goes to all list members, make sure that you send your reply to <address removed> To unsubscribe from this list, send an email to "<address removed>", with the message body: unsubscribe economic-opportunity <your-email-address>
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