Abstract:

Amongst the most urgent and difficult problems to be solved today, without any doubt, is that of agricultural development and the success of planning in this field. The series of surveys that we have carried out for the last several years to evaluate the results of numerous undertakings for agricultural development, have led us to the conclusion that most of the failures in this field come from the fact that the programmes and plans have often been drawn up without taking into account the opinions and attitudes of the populations concerned: due to this, no support is obtained, sometimes causing reticence, or even arousing the hostility of the peasant masses. We have been able to prove that a systematic use of opinion surveys represents one of the factors essential to the success of the undertaking, enabling the planning to be adapted to the realities of the human milieu and to obtain support for its methods and objectives.