One of the more commonly used methods of development down here is technical assistance. Many organizations, including mine, hire skilled technicians and agronomists to teach small business owners and farmers how to do their jobs better with the aim of allowing them to better their own lots. Teaching them how to fish, so to speak.
This effort has had success here, especially with those "clients" that already have some human and / or financial resources on their side. However, it can at most only make up a part of the development that these organizations are trying to achieve. Farmers may not be able to afford the tools they need to employ to take advantage of what they have learned. Or, they simply might not listen to the technicians. Unfortunately, this happens more often than one might expect. One of my colleagues tells me that many of his "clients" don't listen to him simply because he acts like one of them. He doesn't wear leather boots, ride around in a truck with tinted windows, or use the informal "vos" form with them. In addition to not always being effective, it is expensive.
It is no cheap thing to hire technicians, train them in specific crops, and get them out to the fields with the farmers. Given the separation between producers, a technician can visit three, perhaps four producers in a day. To maintain confidence with the producer, he needs to visit at least once a month, but preferably every two weeks. This means that one technician can deliver personal assistance to only 40 or 80 producers at a time. Just to give you some perspective, there are 4,000 potato producers and approximately 100,000 corn producers in the country.
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