Few real-world problems can be solved by the application of a single discipline yet, for the most part, we in the developed countries continue to train people as specialists. Worse still, the educational systems of developing countries have been encouraged to follow the same pattern.
Agricultural education is a case in point. Agriculture is the most important activity in developing countries, occupying the majority of the people—men, women and children. The need to improve agricultural production in these countries is clear. It is equally clear that that improvement will involve more than just the application of science.
For many years, however, most agricultural research throughout the world has been organized as if all that was needed to improve Third World agriculture was scientific advance and technological progress. But it is obvious that farms are systems that contain people and money as well as soil, animals and plants. Furthermore, they operate...
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