ASSESOAR Extensionists
Two extensionists from ASSESOAR cultural department assisted project members on grassroots mobilization during the organization process for the land occupation. Five extensionists from ASSESOAR technical department assisted farmers both during the encampment and after the project
started. Three extensionists: Marcelo Apel, Christophe K. de Lanoy and Ari de Davi spent a considerable amount of time in the project. Marcelo Apel participated most actively in helping the organization of farmers, particularly during the encampment and the first year of the project. He was raised in the same region in which the project was situated and his father was a small farmer. He was a sociologist, worked for ASSESOAR and used to be an ITCF employee, where he had the opportunity to learn about government bureaucracy and to work with the landless in a land entitlement programme. According to him, his commitment to the cause of the small and landless farmers led him to leave the ITCF for a job which would allow him to work in their favour.
Ari de Davi worked mainly on appropriate technology, which included setting up field experiments to test alternative crops, fertilizers and soil protection techniques^. His parents were also farmers and he was trained as an agronomist. During his years at university he was an activist in favour of agrarian reform, and after finishing school in 1980, he worked for two years for the landless movement (MST) , in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Mr. Lanoy, was raised in the city and became an agronomist in 1982. His first job was in ASSESOAR and, according to him, he had always been involved with the situation of the poor farmers. He contributed to both the organization of producers and to developing appropriate technology. He was responsible for introducing the charcoal production alternative to the project and the ASSESOAR revolving fund for project beneficiaries.
^These was also supported by other extensionists, Valdir Mafioletti and Beatriz de Castro.
EMATER extensionists
EMATER allocated two extensionists working full time at Vitoria, José Rogério da Costa Lopes and Gilmar Pinto da Costa. The former worked for six months on the project, and was transferred to the Nhundiaquara Project, which is considered in the next chapter. Mr. Costa worked for three years at Vitoria. He was trained as an agronomist and at the university he took part in the agrarian reform movement. He was allocated to Vitoria in response to its members' request, since they knew about his commitment to their cause. He saw himself as a political activist and his work as an instrument for changing the situation of poor farmers. He also believed that he was part of a minority inside EMATER, as most of his colleagues did not support his work, particularly in relation to his involvement with the landless.
ASSESOAR Extensionists' Role - Commitment to farmers
During the organization of the municipal commissions of the landless, ASSESOAR extensionists worked on raising f a r m e r s ' critical awareness about the landownership situation and official policies for agriculture. This included questioning the role of the state's agricultural research and extension systems, mainly in relation to the type and effectiveness of the technology they transferred to farmers. They also encouraged farmers to challenge the official extensionists knowledge, judging it to be biased in favour of large farmers and cash crop production systems and inappropriate for small farmers. As the ASSESOAR extensionist, Mr. Lanoy, pointed out: "during that period, ASSESOAR extensionists questioned the role played by their colleagues working in the official extension
service. It helped to demystify extensionists' authority and encouraged farmers to think about the impact of their recommendations in their situation and development as a whole".
During the encampment ASSESOAR's extensionists worked mainly to support farmers in their organization and in political actions. This consisted basically of providing information on group organization and contributing to formulate strategies for farmers' mobilizations, negotiations and lobbying with government officials and politicians. After farmers were allocated to their plots, the extensionists also assisted them in their productive activities. According to ASSESOAR extensionists, during this phase their main role consisted of providing information and training to farmers in agricultural techniques, based on the notion of appropriate technology. Thus, they encouraged producers to value their experience and knowledge and use local resources.
They conducted field experiments, and encouraged the official agricultural extension and research services to find economic alternatives for the project. They also tried to provide farmers with alternatives from research centres and land settlement projects in Parana and other states. The extensionists themselves believed that their main role consisted of providing producers with relevant information and helping them to adapt it to their situation, with the aim of solving their problems.
EMATER Extensionists' Role - Difficulties to meet the demand Despite elaborating the economic feasibility and land use study, EMATER had no technical assistance plan to assist the project. According to its extensionists, Mr. Costa and Mr.
Lopes, EMATER expected their work at Vitoria to be no different from that in other communities, although the project was not an usual situation for EMATER. However, they thought the number of extensionists allocated to the project was insufficient to meet the demand particularly for technical assistance. Furthermore, there was no adequate housing in the area and they had to live around fifty miles from the project. They also lacked office facilities and vehicles appropriate to project road conditions. It certainly created difficulties for them in carrying out their work.
EMATER extensionists were the voice of the government in the project. They were responsible for distributing and monitoring credit, determining the technology that should be adopted by project beneficiaries and also bridging the gap between producers and government's departments (EMATER (b) ,
1985). In practice, however, they were forced to assist farmers in meeting their most urgent needs such as health services, housing, credit, and the provision of food, seeds, fertilizers and equipment. As a result, they were involved in activities like transporting farmers to hospitals, driving them to meet authorities, helping them to purchase inputs in regional markets and to negotiate resources and services with government officials and local entrepreneurs. In relation to PROCERA credit, in agreement with project leaders, they normally produced only one type of credit plan for all farmers.
EMATER extensionists considered that there were more important demands than simply providing technical assistance to project members. As Mr. Costa pointed out, "we did everything we could to make the project work, although we knew our efforts were insufficient to solve the problems farmers were facing,
and that both farmers and EMATER could blame us for any bad result". Extensionists saw themselves permanently in conflict by being forced to choose between EMATER's priorities and the demands of the project members and the supporting organizations and movements.
Conflicts With EMATER Hierarchy
Farmers opposed extensionists' views on priorities for the allocation of credit, type of technology and inputs, and the scope of groups. According to Mr. Costa, farmers and their leaders often rejected their suggestions on the basis that it was in line with EMATER's technological package and was not appropriate to their needs. They also perceived that project members were interested in learning with them about the government's administration for gaining access to benefits and services, but not in taking their technical advice into account. According to Mr. Lopes, this was his main reason for asking EMATER to transfer him from Vitoria to the Nhundiaquara p r o j e c t .
EMATER extensionists from the central and regional offices disagreed with the manner Mr. Costa and Mr. Lopes operated in the project. Conflicts between them, working in the field, and extensionists located in E M A T E R 's higher levels were aggravated when the former disregarded the bureaucratic rules of EMATER. This included ignoring E M A T E R 's bureaucracy in the regional and central offices and directly contacting E M A T E R 's directors and several government departments in Curitiba, the state capital. As Mr. Costa pointed out, "frequently we negotiated directly with our directors, which made other minor bosses angry at us, mainly when they were told by the former to
attend to our demands". They also exceeded the mileage limit of their vehicles, because they travelled out of their municipality for transporting inputs and taking project members to the hospital, which was considered a serious fault by EMATER's administration.
This type of 'privilege' did not last long for the field extensionists. At the end of the second year the secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Claus Germer, resigned on the basis that the Parana government had shifted to more conservative polices, which did not include supporting the landless or agrarian reform. The EMATER directors changed as a result and so did E M A T E R 's policies in relation to agrarian reform. This reinforced the position of EMATER regional and central officers that its work in the project should be no different from ' normal ' community work. That is, Mr. Costa and Mr. Lopes should not become involved in producers' 'private' problems, which included providing food supply and medical care, but they should just provide technical information and distribute and monitor credit allocation.
As a result, on many occasions the extensionists were subjected to disciplinary actions, such as written notifications of the regional and central officers, which could justify dismissing them in the future. Mr. Costa remained working on the project after Mr. Lopes left, and was threatened with being transferred to work in other municipalities on various occasions. However, the support of the farmers allowed him to continue working on the project. Moreover, in more controversial matters he supported the farmers while they negotiated with the government. As the farmers' leader, Otalivio Ferreira suggested, "the extensionists were committed
and struggled alongside us, which allowed them to remain working on the project".
Technical Assistance - Insufficient and producers' knowledge valued
The majority of producers agreed they learned and used some of the technology the extensionists recommended. However, technical assistance of both ASSESOAR and EMATER extensionists' was insufficient and rather different. EMATER extensionists forced project members to adopt some kinds of technology due to credit requirements, such as applying chalk to correct soil acidity and using fertilizers. As for ASSESOAR extensionists, according to extensionist Ari de Davi and Beatriz de Castro, they facilitated producers to take charge of the technology they wanted which led them to search for new technology, set up experiments in their plots, diffuse results among peers and adapt the extensionists' recommendations to their individual needs. They also assisted project members on new income raising alternatives which resulted on the introduction of the corn and timber mills and charcoal ovens.
On the whole, producers challenged EMATER extensionists' advice as well as credit rules. Moreover, the technology farmers used was either prescribed or agreed upon by ASSESOAR extensionists. As Marcelo Apel pointed out, "curiously, we were their reference point in relation to agricultural technology as well as to the general strategy. Farmers tended to check with us any type of technology before they decided to use it on their plots, including those prescribed by EMATER exten s i o n i s t s " .
all members and focused mainly on promoting their organization and strategies for negotiating with authorities, and neglected farming activities themselves. Mr. Apel emphasized "we all concentrated on getting land and when we achieved it we realised that we did not have many economic alternatives for the project". Furthermore, the experimental and demonstration plots ASSESOAR set up were abandoned because extensionists were absorbed by other c o m m u n i t i e s ’ demands and the Agricultural Research Institute of Parana (lAPAR) failed to provide producers with seed varieties that they should test. The two experimemts lAPAR and EMATER set up jointly to test corn and pasture seeds were discontinued (lAPAR, March 1986, 1987).
Extension Methods
A SSESOAR extensionists emphasised group methods and group enterprises. This included operating in groups to develop experimental fields, produce animals and crops, sell produce, buy inputs, and set up corn and timber mills. In addition they used groups as instruments for supporting producers' mobilizations, lobbying and negotiations. They encouraged
farmers to give opinions, debate, make decisions and choose leaders and priorities, and women to participate actively in these types of activities and play leading roles. This helped producers to use their knowledge and resources and develop their farming activities.
Extensionists did not use the media. Instead, they encouraged farmers, especially the leaders, to participate in radio programmes, talk to journalists and give interviews to newspapers and television programmes. They believed it was an important instrument for making the general population aware of
the situation of the landless and their ideas about agrarian reform (ASSESOAR, 1988) . The women were also at the fore front of these activities, helping to raise the awareness of the general population about their situation and cause.
By promoting group formation and p r o d u c e r s ' freedom to express themselves, ASSESOAR largely determined the attitude of EMATER's extensionists in terms of supporting producers' initiatives and priorities. The latter were pulled along by the dynamic that both ASSESOAR and producers created. It forced them to listen more to producers and reconsider their p r e conceived ideas. In addition, they considered topics related to producers' political and economical situation, instead of only technical issues. This was also due to their own beliefs and practice which, in turn, were the passport for working at Vitoria.