Agricultural Research and Training

16. Other major deficiencies concern agricultural research and training,(¹²) that is the study and development of new and appropriate production techniques for different situations, and extension work to inform farmers of the existence of such techniques and how to use them to best advantage.

In many developing countries, there is very often little financial commitment to setting up research structures and centres, so that those in charge of training are ill-prepared for their task.

This creates conditions for two closely linked phenomena of particular economic and social importance:

– the spread of techniques that are the fruit of private research and development activities which focus on large-scale concerns for market reasons;

– insufficient attention to the compatibility of new techniques with local farming features, and especially with local socio-economic conditions. In such cases, there is a major danger that the spread of such new techniques will have negative effects on the standard of living of small farmers and the very survival of their farms.