PURPOSE OF SYNTHESIS
This report represents a synthesis of the data generated by the North Florida Farming Systems Project to date, including research findings from station and on farm trials. It describes the project's organizational development and structure, specifying how it determined its objectives and the degree to which it has met said objectives over time.
The following sections describe the region in which the project operates, the nature of its clientele group, problems and constraints identified by the clientele which have been addressed by the project, and the outcomes of research and extension activities to date. Concluding sections present data on the administration of the program, including financial support, team structure, and managerial problems which have been encountered.
WHAT FARMING SYSTEMS RESEARCH AND EXTENSION IS
Farming systems is an holistic, interdisciplinary approach to agrarian development. It is being used with varying degrees of success in many Third World countries and in a limited but growing number of cases in the United States. The holism of the approach derives from the meaning of a "farming system." A farming system is the phenomenon that results from the members of each farm unit's unique int ripetation of the natural and socioeconomic environment in which they attem to tam, as inflUn-en ed-by aviilable resources and those agronomic,. biophysical ahnd-s'iocultural factors affecting their decisions. Farmidysymst ams worm wi h1'omogeneous farming systems"
once these have been identified in a region. The latter represent sets of individual farm units sharing common characteristics and problems to which a farming systems team can direct its efforts.
A farming systems perspective draws upon social and
biological sciences in order to delineate and comprehend this broad and dynamic context. The use of an interdisciplinary team offers a greater probability of defining real problems and of producing useful technological alternatives. The approach maximizes knowledge gathering and interpretation and minimizes time and costs involved in problem solving and dissemination of new technologies. It achieves this by focusing on specific problems and incorporating farmers into the research. The approach differs from component research in that it recognizes interactions between components (hence, a "system") and takes these into account in proposing and evaluating technological