Faced with problems of ignorance and resistance to change (caused by the instability of present agricultural practices) it is essential to first demonstrate such "new" principles and techniques in order to gain the acceptance and understanding of villagers/farmers and thus give them the opportunity to implement by themselves the techniques and to subsequently to receive the benefits from them.

ATA has established a number of demonstration farms specifically designed to pursue the objective of developing new tailored approaches to agriculture. In most areas, farmers are resistant to trying new techniques which may affect their existing situation (i.e. food production) even though yields are seen to be decreasing due to a decline in soil fertility, erosion, forest and pasture loss, etc. For this reason the demonstration farms act as a minimum-risk demonstration of how Sustainable Agriculture systems can work towards self sufficient food and energy production whilst having positive effects on the micro and macro-scale environment.