To the extent that technical decision-making is centralized in contracting
firms, official extension effort can be concentrated. Where
decisions relating to types or quality of feed, planting dates, growing
methods, etc. are not in fact made on the farm there is little point in
aiming technical extension work at farm managers.Farm management research, also, should to some extent be partially
re orientated to the decision-making firm rather than the individual
grow. The primary task of defining the relevant objective function will
be at once more simple and more complex than on the individual farm
level. On the one hand the objective may be more legitimately quantified
in monetary terms, and the techniques of operations research more
readily applied; while on the other hand the numerous profit-making
avenue open to the firm will possibly tend to obscure that part of its
operations relating directly to the primary production phase.