Experiment with farm record keeping in the Dominican Republic

This study describes an experiment to introduce farm record keeping to small farmers in the Dominican Republic (DR). The record book used in the DR consisted of single pages for recording data on all the work activities, purchases, uses of inputs, sales of products, etc., for each crop or enterprise. While resembling the forms used in a similar experiment in Honduras, the DR forms differed in that they were organized for ease of data entry and for direct use in preparing farm enterprise budgets. Data for whole-farm analysis was not provided by the DR records. To implement the experiment, an interviewer was hired to help farmers with the recordkeeping process, and 11 farmer participants were chosen from a list provided by the extension agent. The resources of the participants were inventoried, and the interviewer periodicially visited the farmers throughout the growing season to help them record the data. The problems encountered regarding the latter included non-uniform measures used by farmers; non-recording of home consumption of crops grown or of crops given to friends; the difficulty of separating tasks performed by hired labor; farmers" failure to distinguish between gross and net income; and the difficulty in measuring time required of the farmer for supervising contract labor. The experiment had several implications. (1) Although the need for an interviewer makes recordkeeping a very expensive, their use has definite advantages over single visit interviews in generating data for credit decisions. (2) Successful use of recordkeeping requires a trained and experienced interviewer and farmer participants who are competent and motivated. Tying recordkeeping to credit provision is one of the strongest motivating causes. (3) recordkeeping is a viable tool for educating small farmers about productivity and efficiency. Included are brief socioeconomic profiles of participating farmers, experimental data, and a 10-item bibliography (1977-80).