I

 The Role of On-Farm Research

 in Technology Development


 The client-participatory approach to the
generation, evaluation, and dissemination of technology
developed in recent years involves a sequence of
activities in which the clients (in this case, usually
small-scale, limited-resource family farmers) are involved
in most of the steps. This sequential procedure, known as
Farming Systems Research and Extension (FSR/E), is
flexible and adaptable to different conditions encountered
in the field and in the institutions involved. It is
iterative in the sense that new information is used
immediately and is also fed back into the sequence to
improve earlier stages being repeated in another cycle.
 Initial activities involve a characterization of the
farming systems in an area, through discussions with the
farmers themselves and through the tentative partitioning
of the systems into homogeneous groups, or recommendation
domains, which become the basis for making specific
technology recommendations. A major portion of the
biological research conducted in an area to help solve
problems encountered there is carried out on farms with
the participation of the farmers. Eventually the farmers
are asked to manage simple trials themselves in order to
assess the acceptability of the technology when it is
completely under their control.