Appropriate technology for agricultural development

For any particular country, the package should be designed to maximize both production and employment. The effects of introduction of such technological mixes need to be monitored to establish if they match expectations. The family farm enterprises of the LDCs are the most efficient users of available land. The small farmers are not well off economically; they are generally poorer than the urban labor class. Recent emphasis on assistance programs for the rural poor focused on the landless and thus neglected the family farm group. An increase in the food supply and in the income of a size able segment of the farm population will have broad social benefits. Appropriate technology will not produce maximum production per unit of input, but this is only one of the benefits sought by intervention. The industrial facilities for producing, distributing, and servicing this appropriate technology can be wholly indigenous, to broaden the economic benefits. The objective is to provide a modest positive economic/social benefit to a broad segment of the population. Strengthening the economic status of that segment will improve its political capability. The family farm group can exert a high multiplier effect in using resources to increase production and improve social well-being. An appropriate agricultural technology thus becomes an effective means of economic and social development.