MASTER FARMER

TEACHING SMALL FARMERS MANAGEMENT

BRUCE M. LANSDALE

WESTVIEW PRESS                       1986

 

About the book and author

The story of postwar Greece holds invaluable lessons for many developing countries today. In 1947 Greece had just emerged from a decade of war and strife; its villagers were demoralized and fleeing rural life for the cities; and its farms were unable to produce adequate crops to feed its people. In less than forty years Greece has become a major exporter of foodstuffs, most villages have made the transition from underdeveloped to developing, and rural people no longer yearn to move to the cities.

In this book, Bruce Lansdale, director of the American Farm School in Thessaloniki, Greece – a hands-on educational institution for Greek villagers – provides an eloquent analysis of the training of so-called master farmers, who combine practical and theoretical knowledge of agriculture. Central to the Farm School’s philosophy is faith in the capacity of peasants to solve their own problems and to accelerate the development process in agriculture. The school has concentrated on teaching both rural people and development workers the essential elements of management – planning, organization, leading, controlling, and adjusting.

In clear, concise terms, illustrated with delightful William Papas drawings of the legendary folk figure Nazredin Hodja, Mr. Lansdale outlines the philosophy and techniques of training master farmers. The book is addressed to development workers and those who train them and offers valuable insights into nonformal education, organizing short-course centers, managing secondary agricultural schools, operating student projects, and the problems of technology transfer.

Preface

A lifetime of close association and shared experiences with Greek villagers has instilled in me a deep-seated faith in their ability to solve their problems, if they are given the opportunity and adequate support. These observations reinforce another of my convictions: Properly trained development workers can accelerate this development process through their leadership, dedication, and involvement in rural education as well as through their example as managers. Every bit of progress made by the peasants strengthens the confidence of the development workers, who in turn are able to be more helpful to the peasant. Each seems to contribute to the other’s effectiveness, and they become part of a common process rather than working separately toward the same objective.

A key link in rural development has been the sergeants of agriculture: the specialized technicians who have both a practical and a theoretical understanding of farming and rural living. Some are farmers or farm workers; others serve the farmers or provide badly needed assistance to researchers, extension agents, and other professionals working with rural people. Some of these technicians have been trained in agricultural schools; others acquired their practical and theoretical expertise through years of experience supplemented by specialized courses in training centers and extension programs. This book was written to help development workers understand the practical philosophy and methodology of this training as it has been applied in Greece and other countries. It is addressed to those who want to help rural people in their own or other countries – agricultural extension agents, home economists, agricultural missionaries, development workers, and Peace Corp volunteers who are already in the field – and also to the large contingent of armchair strategists who have their own theories on development work.

To most people in Greece 35 years ago, the idea of teaching peasants to become managers would have seemed as incongruous as the suggestion today that village boys and girls be required to take a course in microcomputers. And yet the transformation of Greek agriculture and of the peasants has been so rapid in recent decades that management has become an essential element of peasant life, just as the computer will probably become their most indispensable tool by the turn of the century.

Many people with urban backgrounds, and even some from rural areas, think of peasants as second-class citizens, a view that is definitely not shared by this author.

• In this book I have used the term with affection, admiration, and profound gratitude to my peasant friends for what they have taught me during the forty years I have worked with them.
• Peasants played an important role in preserving the culture and values of Greece during the 400 years of Turkish occupation, and they are the foundation on which any developing society must build its future.
• At the mid point of this century the Greek villages had just emerged from a decade of war and civil strife. The people were hungry, poorly clothed, and demoralized.
• The majority of the peasants longed to leave the villages, and almost no parents wanted their children to stay. The villagers complained constantly about their misfortunes and were convinced that they could do nothing to overcome them.
• Many Greek and foreign development workers came to the villages with the idealistic conviction that they understood the peasant’s problems and could solve them. However, they soon realized how important it was for the peasants to learn to identify and solve their own problems.
• Others could introduce modern techniques to the peasants and share new ideas with them, but until the peasants assimilated the ideas, they would have little meaning.
• Although any rural development program must rely on effective planning at the national level, development workers must recognize that ultimately success depends on basic economics in the peasants home.
• Postwar aid programs provided villagers with food, clothing, machinery, and housing. But the more villagers were given, the more they seemed to want and the less they seemed to appreciate the help. Free gifts bred dislike, distrust, and laziness.
• Many problems in the rural areas were beyond the peasant’s ability to solve. Main roads connected only the larger towns. Few villages had electricity, and water supplies for drinking or irrigation were insufficient.
• Villages lacked satisfactory credit systems; cooperatives were not working effectively; and schools were inadequately staffed and badly maintained.
• Physical and psychological distances between the village and the capital were so great that when village authorities sought guidance from the central government they found that their questions were misunderstood or that they received irrelevant answers.
• Complicated development issues had to be resolved by experts in the capital, who made long studies resulting in lengthy reports, many of which were never implemented.

The problems of Greece in the mid-twentieth century were not very different from those of developing countries today. The key solution to the plight of the people in these countries is a sustained increase in their own food production. They also need a more equitable system of food distribution as well as ways to expand their exports from farming, fishing, and forestry. They must concentrate on increasing the yields per acre from existing farm land rather than on expanding the acreage of arable land. Technical and financial aid are essential to development in these countries. Other factors are new sources of water for irrigation and fertilizers and more efficient use of organic materials currently being wasted. Insect and pest control are equally important, especially in areas infested with tsetse flies.

Third world countries can follow the example of Greece, where the peasant families implemented new approaches to development, often based on the advice of extension and home economics workers. They increased their knowledge of the technical aspects of agriculture and became more effective managers, and they solved their own problems rather than waiting indefinitely for others to do so. The 750 million farmers in the agricultural labor force of the developing countries must increase their own productivity so that they can provide food for themselves and the booming urban populations. They must learn more about irrigation and drainage, improved seeds, fertilizers, plant protection, animal husbandry, and farm machinery, and they must become better managers, master farmers able to plan more carefully, organize, lead, control, and adjust to changing circumstances.

• The success of development programs in Greece makes the country an especially useful case study. The majority or rural people have seen their areas make the transition from underdeveloped to developing to developed within their lifetimes.
• The extension agents, home economists, teachers, social workers, public health workers, Agricultural Bank employees, and their associates in the private sector have been the key agents of change in the development process.
• National and international organizations have also contributed to this transition.

But much of the credit must go to the villagers themselves, particularly to the women, whose role in many cases has been even greater than that of their husbands. These master farmers and their wives are the sergeants of agriculture: the select group of peasants who have acquired the managerial skills to lead the country to its present high level of agricultural production. It is essential that the developing nations of the world discover innovative approaches to creating such master farmers and the technicians who support them, by providing management and technical training for subsistence peasants.

Throughout the world agricultural development has been based on education, research, and extension. In Greece, too, university training has prepared better equipped researchers and extension agents. Research provided new seeds, breeds, insecticides, pesticides, and equipment. Extension services carried the innovations to the farmers and their families. The achievements of these agencies, supplemented by work in the private sector, have contributed significantly to the development of Greek agriculture.

Since its founding more than 80 years ago, the American Farm School in Thessaloniki has been one of several organizations involved in agricultural development. Although its original purpose was to train village boys, a girl’s school, operated in cooperation with the British Quakers, was added after World War II. The first short-course center in Greece was established at the Farm School in 1947, in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture. Today more than 40 such ministry centers throughout the country train peasants to become master farmers. Through years of seeking new solutions to the problems facing the Greek peasant, the Farm School staff has formulated a number of basic principles, which have been incorporated into this book.

As a result of its long association with both the villages and those working with the rural population, the school has become more Greek than American. The number of American staff members represents less than 3% of the total, and they are regarded as being more Greek than American. Trustees resident in Greece play a far more active role in shaping policy than they did in the early years. Support from within Greece is now greater than contributions from abroad. It has become essentially a Greek school for village boys and girls and farm families.

• Graduates of the Farm School and similar schools as well as former trainees from short courses are employed in a variety of occupations besides farming.

Visitors from many countries ask how the Farm School can best serve as a model for Third World nations. Study visits by school staff to developing countries in Latin America and Africa confirm that many principles that have grown out of the Farm School program could be applied there. A grant from the Rockefeller Foundation made it possible to investigate and confirm this theory in various institutions in Central America, the United States, and several Common Market countries. A report on observations growing out of these trips and an attempt to relate them to the Farm School’s program provide the basis for this book. It has been divided into three major sections, which describe the school’s underlying philosophy of development and the techniques that have been used to implement it. Part One covers the background of Greek rural development and the significance of practical agricultural education as a contributing factor. It also reviews the variety of programs that have been introduced at the Farm School, some of which are examples to be followed whereas others illustrate mistakes to be avoided. Part Two deals with the primary objective: training peasants and development workers to be managers. In Part Three the five basic objectives of a successful agricultural education program for training the sergeants for rural development are analyzed, and suggestions are made on how they can be attained.

The outstanding characteristic among progressive peasant families and development workers is their willingness to be stretched beyond the limits that they previously thought possible. The task of effective training programs is to continually motivate them to reach out even further. Nikos Kazantzakis expressed this concept in the opening lines of his Report to Greco:

I am a bow in your hands, Lord,

stretch me lest I rot.

Don’t stretch me too hard, Lord,

lest I break.

Go ahead and stretch me, Lord,

even if I break.

With adequate leadership they soon discover that they are far from reaching breaking point and possess almost unlimited potential. It is my hope that the extraordinary transformation achieved by the Greek peasant will inspire development workers and peasant families in Third World countries to seek new approaches to releasing the dormant potential in their own land.

Bruce M. Lansdale

Metamorposis,

Chalkidike

Greece