Science and Technology Mailing List Archive

["Dick Tinsley" <<address removed>>]

Now that I have gotten my groundrule conditions specified allow me to make
a couple comments on specific issues.

Extension.

I notice some concern with extension.  Frankly that is the least of my
concerns.  Again please follow the logic carefully.

Extension is based on knowledge being the limiting factor.  Extension of
agronomic information is based on small plot results that are very much
what the potential of the physical environment.  It assumes what I
previously referred to as the Rockefeller hypothesis is true.  The farmers
have the means to utilize the information over their entire holding.  It
does not take into consideration the limited resources available to the
farmers such as labor, draft power etc. that effectively places a major
drag on the physical potential and renders the extension information
unusable and thus rejected.

In developed countrie the farmers have been able to operate fairly close
to this physical potential by buying ever larger tractors to accomodate
the ever larger farms.  This is normally not case for smallholders in the
developing countries

This again goes back to the time it takes smallholder with only hand tools
or perhaps draft animals to get their basic land preparation done.  In
teaching my class I always start the first class with a survey asking the
student how long it would take for couple limited to hand tools to
cultivate 1.5 ha of land.  The student answers are normally 3 to 4 weeks. 


The smallholder reality is 6 to 8 weeks virtually over all environments I
have been associated with, including Africa, Asia, and Middle East.  As
their is a decline in yield potential associated with delayed planting,
this places the later planting and return for weeding and other mid season
activities well outside the period when they are effective. This is one
reason why most extension program have had limited effect.

The real answer is not so much prompting the agronomy but the resource
enhancement that will provide the farmers the means to get the job done in
a timely manner.  Hence my continued interest in finding ways to make
contract mechanization available to stallholders.  Is there any other
means of taking a 8 week planting period and contracting it to a more
reasonable 4 weeks that would allow the information in most extension
programs to be useful to the farmers.

Enough for one message.

Dick Tinsley
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