60a 



Roger Revelle, Papers 1929-1980, MC6, Box 21, f. 50, "[Pakistan, Papers April-July, 

 1963]," SIC Archives, UCSD. 



HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS 



Cambridge 38. Massachusctts 

 April 16, 1963 



Dean Roger Revelle 



Office of the President 



University of California 



Berkeley 4, California <^ 



Dear Roger: 



I am writing to propose most earnestly that even while we are putting our 

 report into final shape certain emergency steps be begun in SCARP 1 to enhance 

 its chances of success, on which so much depends. In that project time has 

 taken us by the forelock and the present trends there must be corrected before 

 we find ourselves with a going concern -- going in the wrong direction. 



This sense of desperate urgency came upon me after I had mulled the situ- 

 ation over for some time and had discussed with the Ford people their experi- 

 ence in Ludhiana and elsewhere with the package program. I learned quite a few 

 things in Ludhiana, etc., of which the following two are the most crucial: 



1. Our time table is extremely optimistic. It should aim for a substan- 

 tial improvement in farm output by five years after an adequate force of field 

 assistants, with a good back-up of agricultural supplies, has been put into the / 

 field. The Ford people have been in operation a couple of years, now. They 

 have achieved impressive improvements for a few cooperating farmers and villages, 

 but the diffusion of the new techniques has not yet been appreciable, although 

 they are working in Sikh communities and the Sikhs are, by universal agreement, 

 the best farmers in the subcontinent. To be sure, in our plan, the initiation 



of a project and the launching of the field force were scheduled to be almost 

 simultaneous. But in SCARP 1 the project was officially opened a couple of weeks 

 ago, and the field force is still, I am afraid, years away. We should make it 

 clear that the clock should begin to run only with the initiation of a sub- 

 stantial effort at agricultural improvement. This is only a matter of score- 

 keeping, perhaps, but it matters, for this and future projects. 



2. The quality of the field assistants is very important. The farmers 

 are no fools, and they are not impressed by the advice of a young man unless it 

 is quite clear to them that he knows his business. He must give intelligent 

 answers to intelligent questions and must conduct himself with the assurance that 

 only sound training and some first-hand experience can give. In Ludhiana, the 

 villages that are cooperating are precisely those with the best qualified Village 

 Level Workers, and the project staff is much concerned by the ineffectiveness of 

 the run-of-the-mill field staff. In contemplating SCARP 1, I am appalled at the 

 thought of the pick-up crew we are inheriting. 



I think that we are all agreed that West Pakistan is almost devoid of com- 

 petent field assistants and, even worse, of competent teachers and effective 

 agricultural colleges for training them. 



