04-08-2012, 10:05 AM
FARMING SYSTEMS RESEARCH-EXTENSION METHODS
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WHAT IS "FARMING SYSTEMS RESEARCH-EXTENSION" OR FSRE?
FSRE is a multi-disciplinary, participatory methodology for technology development that merges research
and extension efforts. It is often called by other names such as on-farm adaptive research with a farming systems
perspective. FSRE is a means of integrating farmers with researchers and extensionists, or with less official NGO
personnel, in a systematic procedure for identifying and solving problems associated with attempts to achieve
diversified and sustainable agricultural development. Multidisciplinary FSRE teams, comprised of research,
extension and other personnel, work with farmers to identify problems and constraints and then create, adapt and test
alternative solutions. Solutions are matched to specifically characterized, yet diverse biophysical environments and
socioeconomic conditions of farm households and their fields called Recommendation Domains. FSRE is a flexible
methodology as useful in industrialized countries as in developing countries and is increasingly being used in the
broader sphere of conservation and sustainable development.
FSRE field teams identify problems and constraints of farmers in Research Domains through rapid survey
techniques designed specifically for this purpose. Farmers participate in a search for and testing of options and as
much work as possible is carried out on farms rather than on experiment stations. This is necessary to subject
technologies being tested to the diverse biophysical and socioeconomic conditions of these farmers rather than just
to the highly controlled experimental conditions imposed on stations (see Hildebrand and Russell, Chapter 1).
Because of continued farmer participation, and because research and extension activities are combined rather than
separated, communication problems are reduced and the lag from problem identification to technology adoption is
minimized. In this way, FSRE is a complement to community adaptation, learning and diffusion, which historically
has been important in agricultural technology innovation and change (See Bastidas 2001 p. 19) for a schematic
representation of this methodology).
Most people in society have become concerned about maintaining the sustainability of agriculture. This
concern was fomented by the rapidly increasing consumption of non-renewable natural resources, combined with a
deteriorating environment where air, ground and surface water, and our natural ecosystems are being contaminated
or disappearing. A movement toward a more diversified and sustainable agriculture will necessarily require a shift
of agriculture away from vast, artificially created and relatively homogenous farming systems based on the heavy
use of fossil fuels and chemicals to dominate natural biophysical environments and to farming systems more in tune
with naturally existing, but quite varied natural environments and ecosystems. Farming systems research and
extension evolved in situations where it was necessary to work with the natural variability of existing ecosystems
and the different farming systems that farmers developed to survive and hopefully prosper while minimizing the use
of off-farm resources. Therefore, FSRE is a valuable procedure for helping in the search for a more sustainable
agriculture worldwide.