Assisting Poland in Transition

For the last three years, U.S. Extension personnel have been involved in a collaborative project with Poland's Ministry of Agriculture to restructure and revitalize Poland's Agricultural Advisory Service. Beyond helping Poland, this project has provided a unique opportunity to extend the federal/state/county partnership that has made our domestic Extension programs so successful to the international arena.

In late 1989, President Bush asked then Secretary of Agriculture, Clayton Yeutter, to head a team to determine how the United States could help Poland in making the difficult transition to a political democracy and a market economy. An Extension Service-USDA team, led by ES Administrator Myron Johnsrud, met in 1990 with key officials in Poland's Ministry of Agriculture, agricultural leaders from Rural Solidarity, the Sejm (Poland's Parliament), and the Church Agricultural Committee, as well as regional and local agriculturalists and private farmers.

The team and the leaders they interviewed agreed that Poland had a sound agricultural research base and well-trained agricultural specialists at all levels. However, neither the agriculturalists, agricultural economists, nor farmers had the basic economic knowledge and skills needed to successfully manage farms or agribusinesses in a market economy.

Poland's Extension system was held in low esteem because it had served the Party and government, favoring state farms over private farms in the provision of new technology and physical inputs. But most Poles favored restructuring the current organization rather than abandoning it only to face building a new Agricultural Advisory Service from scratch. Polish officials were also unhappy with international "assistance," which they described as experts coming in with little knowledge of local circumstances, staying in posh hotels for one or two weeks, telling Poles what they should be doing, and then disappearing with nothing accomplished.

Based on these findings, the ES-USDA, in collaboration with Poland's Ministry of Agriculture, developed and implemented a project to help restructure and reorient Poland's Agricultural Advisory Service to work closely with private farmers, agribusinesses, and rural communities to teach the skills necessary to operate successfully in a market economy. The focus of help would be on how to plan and carry out client-oriented educational programs and on understanding economic issues and developing skills in management, marketing, and agribusiness development, rather than in agricultural production. The program would be carried out by a few, long-term American staff assigned to the Ministry of Agriculture and with six-month, two-person field teams working at provincial level advisory centers. These teams would have time enough to gain an understanding of local conditions and design programs with their Polish counterparts that would address specific local concerns and needs.

This basic approach, worked out in collaboration with many Poles, has worked effectively and received the continued endorsement of three new Ministers of Agriculture. To date, ES- USDA has placed field teams in 14 of Poland's 49 provinces and five additional field teams began six-month assignments in January of 1993. As a result of the program, many changes have been made in the Polish Agricultural Advisory Service.

For example, 49 provincial Agricultural Advisory Centers have been separated from state farms, the center directors fired, and new directors recruited using a competitive process. The Agricultural Advisory staffs, which were bloated by the make-work policies of the old regime, were reduced by about 50%. The Polish advisers and specialists were found to be well-educated and professionally active, but they underestimated the quan-tity and quality of work they could do. By example and quiet persuasion, these limitations are being eliminated.

Citizen advisory councils have also been organized in all provinces and, in some cases, in each township. Increasingly, these councils determine priorities and needs and Extension professionals organize and deliver the educational programs to address these needs. A national council has been established and is making recommendations on a regular basis to the provincial governors, Ministry of Agriculture, and the Parliament.

In terms of direct Extension programming, farm visits and consultations have greatly increased and local agribusinesses are becoming regular clients of the Agricultural Advisory Service. A larger number of on-farm trials and demonstrations are being conducted by Extension staff throughout the country to reduce production costs and improve marketing.

The Extension centers are regularly printing and distributing market news based on price information collected by local Extension workers. The Agriculture Marketing Service of USDA is building on this base to develop a uniform national system of price discovery and reporting. Once it becomes more highly developed, the market news function will "spin off" as a private industry.

More than 1,200 Extension advisers in 26 provinces have received intensive training in business planning and development workshops. Extension centers have become the primary source of such assistance in rural Poland. A variety of small- and medium- sized agribusinesses have been created in rural communities as a result of these workshops and follow-up assistance. Polish specialists are now so expert in conducting the business planning workshops, which are in ever-increasing demand, that American advisers are giving more of their attention to helping business startups, joint ventures, and international trade.

Two major factors contributed to the success of this project. First, no attempt was made to impose the U.S. or any another Extension model on Poland. Instead, Poles at all levels collaborated with U.S. Extension personnel in developing a unique approach consistent with Polish traditions, institutions, and needs. The U.S. field teams weren't given blueprints to implement, but were expected to develop their plans of work, in collaboration with provincial and local Extension staff and farmers, to address local conditions, needs, and priorities.

Second, U.S. Extension marshalled a group of highly qualified, diverse, committed faculty for the effort. State directors and staff responded positively to opportunities to participate. Staff from 20 land grant universities have included:

• County agents for 15 of 28 field assignments (as opposed to many projects that have used mostly state staff).
• Women for seven of 28 field assignments-a ratio never before achieved, to our knowledge, on an overseas Extension project.
• Staff with overseas experience mixed about evenly with staff on their first extensive overseas assignment.
• Staff from all major program areas, including agriculture, home economics, youth development, community and rural development, and natural resources.

As word of the project's accomplishments has spread, USDA has received requests for Extension help from Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Ukraine. At a critical time in history, U.S. Extension has been able to demonstrate the power and effectiveness of adopting to and meeting the needs of the people.