PURPOSES OF ON-FARM RESEARCH


 On-farm research in this context can become a focal
point for developing a technological system to serve
farmers, opening up several new possibilities for
improving the effectiveness of research:

1. On-farm research can serve as a linkage for ongoing
 research and extension and the improvement of both.
2. It can make component research more purposeful. It
 serves as a basis for evaluating the output from
 discipline and commodity research, because it can
 function to integrate the results from that research.
3. It can serve as a basis for the orientation of
 component, commodity, and discipline research and the
 selection of priorities.
4. It can make research more comprehensible, and
 therefore more attractive to decision makers.
5. It can furnish information and introduce checks and
 balances (evaluations) that can improve research and
 extension management.
6. It can be a hands-on experience to improve the
 effectiveness and the image of research and extension
 workers, typically viewed by farmers as inhabitants of
 ivory towers who do not understand the reality of
 farming.
7. It can add to biological research, making it more
 effective by evaluating responses when the
 non-experimental variables, including management, are
 allowed to fluctuate within the farmers' normal
 conditions of production. The conventional research
 system gives an estimate of what would happen if
 farmers were to control variables as the researcher
 does. It does not, however, furnish an estimate of
 results if farmers were to actually use the new
 technology. Both estimates are important, but without
 on-farm research, the latter is missing.
8. The entire sequence can be considered as a learning
 process for researchers, extension personnel and
 farmers. It helps to refine both technology and the
 definition of the recommendation domain(s) for which
 specific technology is appropriate.