In other words, in the whole history of the dominican dairy farmer, we can't mustard up our own competent professional on the subject or an analytical gesture from our government, must we have someone hold our hands while we cross the same street over and over again.

yes, in 2011, we still need foreigners to come in a teach dairy farmers how to produce dairy products efficiently.

The basis of any modernization drive rest on its educational foundations and development. Given DR's putrid development in educational achievement many problems persist beyond the point of normal developments. Unable or unwilling to master the basic fundamentals of the language of development, many farmers and the like insist on doing things "their way." However much "their way" is wrong, detrimental to modernization/productivity or even health wise. So we see the over use of pesticides that threatens to kill the export market and the like.

DR needs massive help +developmental assistance; think hundreds, thousands, of experts in various fields to advise and develop long-term relationships to secure the modernization drive. Perhaps a policy to attract US/Canadian/European/Japanese/Korean/ experts and recent Agricultural College students to do their interns and investigation in DR will help to solidify the foundations of DR's agricultural sector. But DR has to increase ED

Atabey offers

Unable or unwilling to master the basic fundamentals of the language of development, many farmers and the like insist on doing things "their way." Unable or unwilling to master the basic fundamentals of the language of development, many farmers and the like insist on doing things "their way."

any idea of why this might be so? this is 2011, for chrissakes. go to the forum, and look at the photographs of all those magnificent glass and concrete monuments springing up all over. we have fighter planes. we have underground locomotives. yet we need some guy from 3000 miles away to teach people to milk a cow?

Dread

Dominicans know how to milk a cow alright..

yes, Walter. especially a cash cow.

I'm with Atabey on this - education is the key to everything whether it be home, children, jobs, progress. If you don't teach children to learn, think, analyse or research, how do you expect them to become thinking adults? I've tried many times to show adults how to make their lives easier, in a variety of ways. It makes me so sad that it's so difficult to teach/train adults here. Get education sorted at a young age and keeping it going - one generation from here, you'll see a completely different type of adult! I don't mean 4 hours a day - 7 to 8 hours is the norm, how do you expect any child to leave school with life skills on 4 hours a day? I've taught English in various places here, how extraordinary that most of the teachers can't even spell their own language - how can they teach children if they don't know themselves? My Spanish leaves a lot to be desired and trying to help youngsters with their homework is very hard when I have to decypher the teachers writing and spelling.

Helen, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. i have found, at least in my experience, that trying to teach Dominicans a better way to do things is a lost cause. they either resent you for the initiative, or think they know a better way than you do. don´t belive me? teach them how to fry an egg with minimal amounts of oil. then, come back tomorrow and watch them do it. one quart of Crisol per egg.

"Helen, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. i have found, at least in my experience, that trying to teach Dominicans a better way to do things is a lost cause."

Your negativity dread is sooooooooooooo evident. Why even live in DR if it's a "lost cause" ? Go somewhere people value your teachings. Ha HA HA HA!!!

What's needed is sustained pressure against the anti-modernist stance of many of these ill-educated mass of people. Promoting an open economy with greater ties to the world market can greatly pressure people into modern patterns of living and productive usage of their means of production and service employment. Government must act to create greater educational opportunities and cut the unsustainable subsidies in electricity, for example, to free up capital investments for national educational needs.

what you should try to do, Atabey, is to debate the point. you know what a debate is, don´t you? it goes something like this...i make a point, you make a counterpoint. now you should try to prove to me that people are not stuck in old ways, and are quick to adapt to new methods. instead, you take the juvenile way out, making some grade school remarks. by the way, are you not the same guy who said this

What's needed is sustained pressure against the anti-modernist stance of many of these ill-educated mass of people.

is that not the samje thing i am saying, in different words? i guess you are just too much of a dunce to realise it.