Agricultural education and training is expensive since it requires teaching aids, scientific and technical equipment as well as adequately equipped training and experimental farms. The maintenance and replacement of these facilities is generally not guaranteed, however, and are beyond the resources of many institutions in developing countries. In some cases, institutions may own sophisticated equipment, such as electron microscopes or mainframe computers, but lack the means to replace simple items such as microscope slides and computer disks, or to repair agricultural machinery. In some countries, the machinery buildings of these school farms are 'cemeteries' and the barns are empty. As a result, the school farms rarely achieve their objectives in experimentation, teaching or agricultural production.
General staff issues Higher education .
During recent years, some institutions of higher education have made great efforts to recruit teaching staff with top university qualifications and to improve the qualifications of existing staff. However, budget cutbacks, have made it difficult to maintain teaching standards due to reductions in staff development programmes, especially those involving training abroad. The limited budgetary resources of many institutions often do not allow teachers to obtain the scientific and technical publications necessary to keep their knowledge current, or to conduct research or extension activities. This has resulted in a decline in the standards of teaching, research and extension in many countries. Budgetary limitations and lack of resources were also mentioned as obstacles which prevents teaching staff trained in Europe or the USA from adapting their theoretical knowledge to local conditions.