as i go about linking into ex pat community hung ry for organics to farmers who want to pro vide for a market , have to give thought to what an expat who w\ orks with another farming marketing group up north - they've succe eded in helping farmers double and triple their incomes, but she's been researching the social effects of the success. with the extr a income alcoholism and aids rates have gone up, as m en now afford prostitution. unintended consequenses! at this point my group s' mission has been to increase food security for farmers and some rural dwellers who before weren't even farming much. now they have full beds of vegetables which feed th eir famil ies healthy variety, and save them the cost and bad effects of chemical pesticides, etc. but they are itching for a market and feelin g a bit let down that our group hasn't provided one for them. our mission originally didn't include a market plan, it was rathewrt to improve the local health, and food security should they get struck by aids/ they aren't on the bri nk of poverty / hunger. i worked with a newly trained group on friday and asked them about their experience before our training, with conventional farm ing. they said they couldn't always afford the chemicals, and had trouble with market. i asked how they planned to solve the market trouble now that they are learning organic. they said that they didn't need to solve it because we would provide them with the market! so i found out that that's been the misunderstood expectation, and let them know that we don't actually provide the market, but together we can work on the problem- that they themselves have to re search the market and see what is oversuppli e d an d what's in demand, figure out what they want to plant- be t hinking about market already now that they are prepar ing their beds for planting. that was new for th em, they figured we would make the choices on what to grow. they got more enthused actually because they had a lot of ideas about what to grow that they didn't think they had a choice about. and they got enthused about finding their markets. it's this sort of disempowering presumptions, that they don't need their o wn ideas, because all will be provided, that we are trying to route out. i think our trainers have been feeding them with ideas of what to plant which aren't market based, which has been part of the problem. i like my assignment which has been to route out passivity, it's tricky sometimes. on the demo plot we run my counterpart and i have made some changes. rather then have the two hired helpers (my swahili and karate teachers) be only partially trained in organics, work for a wage and follow expert s' instructions, they are going to get full trainiing just like any of our other farmer grou ps. they will then be res ponsible to make their o wn choices in the management of the plot, and will earn a share of the profit s. they were energized with these changes as were my co horts and i. . based on what the ex pat friend of mine observed w/ her group, if we do help some of the farmers link with marketing groups and training we may need to investigate that their training also includes money management. I feel like these changes in the program away from passivity as much as possible are positive and are just like what i w as t rained to do in acupuncture. we were a lways on alert to keep pati ents taking responsibility for their own health, and not coming in passiv ely to get th eir health and life 'fixed ' by the expert. western medicine sets up a passive r elationship with patients just like development projects set up pas sive relationshipos with people here in tanzania. so it's a similar challenge, it's fun for me to work with it on a macro level rather than micro.