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For more than a generation a considerable amount of attention has been given to the development and utilization of an empirical measure of the theoretical concept of innovativeness. Research workers in agriculture have employed various types of adoption of farm practices scales as a measure of the relative rates of adoption of technological innovations by farmers. The major problem in using an adoption scale has rested with unidimensionality; the degree to which the developed scale measures the innovativeness dimension. Following the review of several research studies aimed at establishing unidimensionality, some sociologists claimed that the analyses provided no clear cut answer as to whether adoption scales measure only a single general dimension; innovativeness. The major aims of this paper are to demonstrate that such unidimensionality does clearly exist and to show the theoretical and practical implications. The data used in this paper were drawn from an interdisciplinary study of the factors determining the adoption of agricultural innovations by a sample of 116 woolgrowers in New South Wales.

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Copyright of Rural Sociology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses several issues related to agricultural development discussed in the seminar sessions of the third world congress for rural sociology. Serious questions were raised concerning the appropriateness of the usual variable characteristics included in many sociological studies if such studies are to have utility for policy-makers and planners dealing with problem of development in rural areas. The relatively low correlations found between such characteristics as age, sex, years of schooling and size of farm suggests that the focus should be on characteristics more closely associated with involvement such as beliefs and disbelief about the groups or activities. Given the technology available today, it should be possible to collect the data appropriate to decisions about a given project in a reasonably short time and to tailor the collection to the particular area concerned whether it be a small rural village or a district or a nation. One of the major conclusions of the session and of cooperative researches has been that cooperatives have failed to make the contributions to development that sociologists had anticipated. It was felt that cooperative structure is quite flexible and could and should be adapted to local customs in many cases.

The purpose of this research paper is to enlarge the dimension of agrarian reform programs by considering them as a part of the community development role in agrarian improvement and economic development in general. The author's hypothesis shall be that community development programs are a necessary condition for economic development. Implicit in the author's discussion is the thought that community development programs can extend beyond traditional supporting services such as credit availability, technical advice and marketing co-operatives. In some countries, extensive agricultural support programs may, however, qualify for "full-blown" community development status. The contention is that for agrarian reform to make significant economic contributions, major support activities are required. After surveying rural agriculture in Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines, the author concluded that one institution appeared to stand above all others as a requisite for the existence of a strong agricultural sector and that is viable farmer associations.

The article discusses the effect of innovations on patterns of rural development and in particular on output per acre and on labor input per acre. Data from a sample of 240 smallholdings in five different areas of Malawi are examined. The article indicates that the existence of differing patterns of rural development in these areas. It discusses the implications for rural development policy. The article shows a bias among the smallholders in favor of innovations and a skepticism about the viability of yield increasing innovations.

This paper describes an index number designed to measure the soundness of agricultural development in the Sub-region, a laboratory of North Carolina and Virginia, in terms of the land and its people. Soundness of agricultural development is in the realm of subjective judgment; it varies with time and place and purpose. For the purpose of this study, the goals pursued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been accepted and the indices included related to the Department's program which attempts to effect a transition from the present disorganization of commercial agriculture, inadequate farm income, and wasted, eroded land to a balanced agriculture which conserves and develops the land and its farmers.

The article illustrates the scientific problem of the conservation of the heaths in Dorset, England. It presents three main causes of the heaths extensive anthropogenic changes, including the increased agricultural development, need for grown home timber and the scarcity of suitable sites for new plantations, and southward trend of the British human population. It describes the changes in area of heathland habitat and its fragmentation. It also forecast the fate of the existing flora and fauna in the light of observations made on the adaptations to changes in land use. Conservation and ecological implications of the work were also discussed.

In this article, it is argued that the usual contents of the concepts modern and traditional are insufficient to account for the presence or absence of agricultural development. The use of the concepts may even have led to a certain neglect by rural sociologists of the structural factors affecting development. A more accurate way is suggested of classifying the variables influencing the farmers' innovativeness under the headings ignorance, inability, and unwillingness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article reports that recent literature considers prevailing land tenure patterns a barrier to agricultural development in many developing countries and much discussion has focused on land reform as a means of removing this barrier. Most land reform programs emphasize the need to shift to an owner-operator based agriculture, following the hypothesis that prevailing tenure patterns do not lend themselves to providing the incentives necessary for increased production. Since most literature on the effect of tenure on production concentrates on the tenants and owner-operator groups, a study was undertaken at the College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines, to analyse the role of the Filipino landlord, to develop a typology of each type with its functions and factors involving operational decisions. The results indicate differences in whether annual crops or perennial crops are grown. Class levels tend to follow absentee vs. resident landlord groups, with more of the former in the upper class and the smallest number in the lower class. A pattern of landlord-tenant relationships emerged that was either paternal or non-paternal and traditional or modem in the landlord's attitude toward the development of the enterprise.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Sociologists can learn as much as they may teach through involvement in agricultural development. Agricultural development is a top priority today among people in many cultures. Except as a particular academic interest is pursued in a variety of cultural settings, it is virtually impossible to distinguish between truly universal principles, on the one hand, and generalizations that owe their relevance only to certain aspects of the particular social setting in which they are observed to hold true, on the other. Sociology, however defined, needs involvement in human group activities in a variety of cultural settings in order to winnow what is universal and intrinsic from that which is parochial and derivative. The author is not at all sure that social organization and interaction are any more intricate or complex for a dynamic society than for one that is relatively static, but certainly they are different. Development involves the breaking of old social patterns as well as the emergence of new ones. The problems change as development proceeds. The author know that for economics this requires differences in research emphasis and content.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the factors which impede agricultural development in inter-tropical Africa. These factors are the insulting behavior of some western technical advisers, the active dislike of being stationed in rural areas and the disesteem for agriculture and peasants shown by the higher civil servants, the isolation of many regions due to the lack of good roads and the eccentric location of capitals and finally, the trauma of the peasant, that is to say his stoicism, apathy, inertia and lack of enthusiasm for agriculture. The discussion about the applicability of western economic theory in underdeveloped societies or sub-societies has not yet ended. It may be true that, in a radically different social structure, economic behavior includes actions and objects which in the industrial countries are not ordinarily thought of as pertaining to the economic sphere. It may also be true that some of the actions of African peasants do not correspond to what the homo economicus is supposed to do. The African peasant may sometimes strive for a target income and regard additional income as not worth the extra effort in order to obtain it.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the land use in the Near East. In Lebanon, one can see in a relatively circumscribed area a kind of recapitulation of several millennia of agricultural development, and practices which make use of the most modern as well as of age-old techniques. A caterpillar tractor is used to pull gang plows within a stone's throw of a farmer who is still driving oxen round an ancient threshing floor to trample out the grain, just as his forefathers did for ages past There are curious blends of primitive and modern techniques. At Zahle, in the Bequaa plain of Lebanon, the old threshing sleds were still in use on the threshing floors but they were pulled not by oxen but by a tractor. Farming of these mountain slopes is a perpetual battle against the elements. Unless infinite care is taken, the rain and snow storms of winter will remove every trace of soil, which can be held in place only by a complex system of terraces. Many mountain slopes are completely made over. For thousands of vertical feet, every horizontal field a yard wide has its equivalent yard or more of perpendicular wall. The entire mountainside has been so completely made over that it is hard to imagine what the original landscape was like. This is indeed a mature cultural landscape.

This article presents information on the influences made by neighborhood norms on individual farmers with regard to their adopting new farming techniques. The method adopted for assessing the attitude norm for a given district was to ask all farmers in a district questions concerning the attitude of most farmers in the neighborhood. It is informed that all the data analysed in the study presented in this article shows that leaders do have a higher adoption rate than the average for the district and the observed data accord quite well with the assumption that a farmer, if he is to be regarded as a leader, must have an adoption rate which is higher than the avenge adoption rate of those who vote for him by a given proportion of this average. The data quoted for five districts studied show that leaders have an adoption rate which is approximately 20 per cent higher than that of other farmers taking the leader's practice adoption rate as the base. The likelihood of a farmer being voted for as a leader appears to diminish both when the proportional differences between his adoption rate and that for farmers in general decreases and also when this difference increases.

It is informed that national affluence, along with increased agricultural technological efficiency, surplus production, and the inelasticity of demand for food products has resulted in a cost-price squeeze for farmers. This situation demands as a solution that surplus farmers be helped to transfer to other forms of employment where they will presumably prosper along with the lesser number of farmers left behind to operate the larger farms. It is opined that national affluence simply occurred presumably as a result of the Adam Smith laissez-faire operation of the market place, and there is no alternative for farmers other than to adjust to this affluence by reducing their number. Presumably, the prosperity of such adjusting farmers will be increased, although they will move into an economy where technological advances are displacing manual labor and small entrepreneurs at a rate probably equal to or greater than that in agriculture. It is opined that whatever prosperity farmers do and will have can be attributed in large measure to the organized auspices through which their goods are produced and marketed.

The article presents the findings from a study designed to determine whether the five conceptualized stages in the adoption process of new farm practices can be validated empirically. At first stage the individual is exposed to an idea. He is aware that the new practice exists, but he lacks details concerning it. At second stage the individual is motivated by his curiosity and interest in the new practice. He is interpreting the new idea by relating it to other experiences and other phenomena which are part of his environment. At third stage the individual is concerned with applying the idea to his present or predicted situation. The relative advantage of the new practice over other alternatives is considered. A decision to try or not to try the new practice is made. In the fourth stage, the individual is concerned with the specifics of how, what, when, and where. Information and data regarding the technique and method are sought rather than evaluative information. The fifth stage consists of evaluation, satisfaction with the trial and the decision for continued use.

This article presents information on the conference on comprehensive planning of agriculture in developing countries. The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovoth, Israel, again acted as host to an International Conference on Science in the Advancement of New States, following up the first meeting held in 1960. The purpose of the conference was to bring together those actually responsible for agricultural planning and development in the developing countries, and representatives of academic and research institutions, so as to provide an opportunity for a free and direct exchange of problems, views and know-how between them. The participants accordingly included decision makers, top-planners and administrators from Africa, Asia and South America on the one hand and top scholars and experts from all over the world, on the other. Three broad topics were discussed during the deliberations, econornic and physical aspects of agricultural planning and development, on national, regional and farm levels, cultural, social and political factors affecting rural life and development, from the point of view of the overall society, the village community, and the individual family and problems of agricultural research, education and extension.

This article presents information on the trends in agriculture in Latin America. In this article change is looked at as the process whereby different kinds of local social systems or communities adapt themselves to novel elements of endogenous or exogenous origin. The three community types are those which accompany plantations and traditional "haciendas" and are frequently coterminous with them, and communities of smallholder neighborhoods grouped around trade and service centers. The extraordinary growth of the cities and the stagnation of the country is causing demand for food products and industrial staples which is not being met effectively by the agricultural sector. In the rural sector, under the impact of the expansion of the modern industrial urban core of the nation, there is a breakdown of structures, a turning away from traditional values, a failure of social control, and the incompatible grafting of new elements on the archaic fabric. The deepest problem of rural change is the transformation of the "estate-like" relation patron-laborer and all that it implies.