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Farmer-to-farmer volunteers have excellent 

 opportunities to distribute publications. 



* Rethink The Model Farm Program 



The role of U.S. -type model farms in the NIS technical 

 assistance program should be re-examined. Their role and 

 value depend in large measure on how we define our goals. 



If our goal is to promote the evolution of true private- 

 sector, market-oriented farming then existing concepts 

 of model farms may not be particularly helpful. They are 

 merely irrelevant curiosities to typical private farmers. 

 To these people our model does not address fundamental 

 problems and is totally unattainable. 



On the other hand, if the goal is to increase 

 productivity of the large state and collective farms 

 which have been nominally "privatized", then U.S. -type 

 model farms can be useful. Production of food and fiber 

 will increase, but the transition to free-market 

 agriculture will most likely be delayed. 



In my judgment we should be searching out and supporting 

 the handful of promising indigenous "model farms", (or 

 associations of farms) that occasionally spring up 



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