alternatives.
The public policy goal of farming systems is to improve the food production capabilities of family farm units within the context of their societal and biophys.ical environments. rcm the farm unit's members' point of view, farming systems is successful if it generates technologies which they adopt for whatever reasons. The felt needs and desires of farmers and their families are the focus of farming systems work.
As a development strategy, it takes a "bottom up"
orientation in which the members of farm units are the clients. Decisions about research, technology design and agricultural policy are formed through an understanding of farm family/household goals, needs, resources and constraints.
The farming systems approach has structurally evolved to the point where it necessarily encompasses two basic and integrated components. These are known as the farming systems approach to infrastructural support and policy--FSIP, and the farming systems approach to technology generation -i.psearch) and dissemination (extension)--FSR/E (Hildebrand and a_3z 1982). FSIP is more "macro" than FSR/E, and because it deals with policy, has been harder to implement and evaluate.
If farming systems examines the farm unit as a
sociocultural and economic whole, and therefore empirically develops a systemic farm model, then as a perspective and research procedure it is likewise systemic. Thus, FSIP can influence the technology and dissemination component by revealing infrastructural barriers to development and indigenous support systems to which a farming systems team could become connected. FSR/E can inform policy by revealing how farmers manipulate resources that are available to them. Feedback loops integrate the components; research and development flow both "up" and "down" when farming systems is understood in its widest meaning. It is this dynamic framework and the proper functioning of a team of biological and social scientists that potentially makes the farming systems approach so powerful a tool for development.
As its name implies, FSR/E combines research and extension activities. Farming systems research is conducted both on station and on farm. On farm trials allow the testing of technology under diverse management and environmental conditions, while allowing the farmer to observe and participate in the trial, thereby enhancing learning of the technology and providing direct farmer evaluation. On farm trials can be either researcher or farmer managed; the former are usually conducted when the research is addressing basic questions, and they are commonly supplemented by station trials.
The North Florida FSR/E Procram
The North Florida Farming Systems Research/Extension
(FSR/E) Project initially was conceived as a "pilot" domestic project. The purpose of the North Florida FSR/E Program is to identify, develop, test and deliver appropriate technology for