October, 1912.] 



279 



LOCAL BODIES AS AGENTS IN AGRICUL- 

 TURAL IMPROVEMENTS. 



In the organisation of agricultural advance in any country or under 

 any conditions whatever, it has ultimately had to be recognised that 

 the bulk of the work must be done by the farmers or cultivators them- 

 selves. A government, an agricultural department, a body of state 

 servants, may point the way, may suggest the lines — but until the people 

 can be interested and become enthusiasts themselves, the advance will 

 be slow, will be looked upon with suspicion, and will be more apparent 

 than real. The condition of things has prevailed in almost every country 

 where changes have taken place as the result of the action of a state 

 department. It has been, perhaps, more strikingly the case in the 

 United States of America, where the state action has been greater than 

 anywhere else, but where, until comparatively recently, most farmers 

 looked on the work of Government with amused interest and little 

 more. 



It is this fact that has made most of the far-seeing leaders in the 

 development of agricultural departments in India very insistent on the 

 necessity for developing local bodies composed of cultivators themselves 

 or of others interested in agriculture— who should be committed to 

 advanced methods, should show them in action on their own land, should 

 act as local emissaries of whatever in changed methods has been proved 

 to be good. How to bring about the formation of vigorous local bodies 

 for the purpose has been a matter of great difference of opinion. But 

 that such bodies must exist, that there must be local centres doing 

 what an agricultural department itself could never hope to do — on this 

 point, there has been little difference of opinion. 



Results of Organising Local Bodies. 



Ihe results of endeavours to organise such local bodies have, how- 

 ever, as would be expected, been extremely varied. In the Central 

 Provinces, on the one hand, they have become, and tend to become even 

 more, the main link between the agricultural department and its 

 investigators, and the people. On the other hand, in Madras they have 

 been, as hitherto organised and carried on, of very questionable value, 

 and it has been recommended that, in their present form, they may well 

 be wound up. In other provinces, very varying success has been attain- 

 ed. But it is impossible not to recognise that there has been a great 

 amount of local energy, public spirit, and enthusiasm devoted to these 

 associations even where they have apparently been of the least value— 

 and this, put into the right channels, will be of very great assistance in 

 development in coming days. 



The amount of experience gained in India has now been, I think, 

 sufficiently great to warrant a short statement of the conditions which 

 have led to success in the organisation of local bodies for popularising 

 and encouraging genuine agricultural improvements. This matter was, 

 in fact, considered by a strong committee at the last meeting of the 

 Board of Agriculture, and the present article is, in essence, a summary 

 of their report, 



