Introduction

We have already seen in Part One the difficulty Australian technical and scientific personnel had in accepting the rationality and simplicity of the medic/cereal rotation being operated by South Australian dryland farmers. They believed that fodder conservation was a better way to go than medic pastures in spite of evidence to the contrary. They urged the continued use of bare fallow long after they themselves had seen and measured its destructiveness on farms in the cereal zone. They never really lost their inclination for deep ploughing although the economics and results of shallow cultivation were superior. It was not until 1953 that research centre farms began to emulate their farmer neighbours and gave up the bare fallow/wheat rotation in favour of a medic/cereal rotation.

In Part Two the review of projects carried out to transfer the system to the farms in Near East and North Africa revealed differences of approach between these groups and the effect this had on the degree of adoption by farmers of the new farming system they were being offered. International institutions and agencies are strong on the ground in the region and they spearhead agricultural development principally because they are able to allocate funds and they play a critical role in decisions about the composition and direction of projects and the selection of staff. composition and direction of projects and the selection of staff.