Farming systems research: Helping the small farmer improve agricultural production

Abstract

Agricultural research has traditionally been done at research stations and its findings disseminated to farmers through the extension services. There has been no involvement of farmers in determining what had to be researched.

Experience in many parts of the world has shown that some technologies successfully developed at research stations have been either rejected for reasons that seemed irrational to the scientists, or have produced poor results on farmers’ holdings. Farming systems research has emerged to remedy the situation. It involves farmers themselves in the identification of their production problems and in the testing of potential solutions under their own conditions. This should ensure that the technologies developed are appropriate for the specific conditions under which the farmers operate.

However, it may not always be easy to weld the specialist interests of the FSR team members into a common goal; also many developing countries may find this approach expensive since many trials have to be conducted under a variety of geographical and socio‐economic conditions; and finally, it may not always be easy for farmers, who usually feel inferior to college‐educated people, to give their honest opinions to the research personnel. All in all, FSR, by taking the small farmer in his total environment as the focus of research, may play a crucial part in smallholder agricultural development.

Notes

Lecturer in Sociology, Chancellor College, University of Malawi.