if it coincides with the institutionalization of provision of new inputs or
marketing structures. Ready availability of recommended inputs that is assumed
in the United States is not taken for granted in an FSR&D project. Because the
United States is a primary manufacturer of fertilizer, herbicides, machinery,
and petroleum, it does not have the import problems that create blockages for
inputs in developing countries. Problems of tariffs, exchange rates, and
procurement of hard currency'here are not the obstacles to getting technology
that they are in the Third World. (Interestingly, there seems to be no research
on risk in farm decision-making when uncertain supply of a factor of production
is also a decision variable (Anderscn, et al, 1982:425). Risk avoidance has
looked at the risk involved in natural phenomena-flooding, drought, etc., but
not at fertilizer or improved seed that is not available when needed,)

 Similarly, the United States does not have a dual economy separating rural
and urban areas. Because of relatively high purchasing power in U.S. rural areas
distribution systems are in place and functioning, whereas in developing countries
the state often has to assume that role. The problems Third World farmers have
in acquiring input resources in a timely fashion eventually forces FSRSD to look
at institutions as well as contained production systems.

 In developing countries, the maintenance, development, and procurement of
farm resources involve, for example, the gathering of manure and the making of
tools, as well as the gathering of fuel and water that take up endless hours.
Fuel and water are a crucial part of the farming system. They are essential to
maintain the family to reproduce the labor necessary to continue the farm work
(Hanger and Moris, 1973). This mix of reproductive and productive work, in
terms of the maintenance, development, and procurement of farm resources, and
the degree to which women perform most of them, is crucial if we are to
understand fully the constraints under which marginal producers operate
(Abdulla and Zeidenstein, 1981).

 The farming system is composed of a variety of subsystems: social,
biological, technical, and managerial. All of these must be understood as tney
interact with each other. Because-of the lack of technology, the relation between
the pa-ts is often very sensitive. In comparing overseas agriculture to U.S.
agriculture, we findthat, in the United States, technology has overcome many of
the biological differences that cause different constraints to be important.
Irrigation, of course, is a major technological innovation that has overcome a
large number of constraints in many parts of the world. Irrigation tends to be
in the hands of large-scale landowners (Pearse, 1980:107). In work such as that
at the International Crops Research Institute for the-Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT),
the complex social nature of putting into practice irrigation systems that take
into account the needs and input of small farmers is being attempted (Matlon, 1980'

FSR and Farm Management Research

 When we talk about farming systems research, many people who have long
experience in the land-grant universities shrug their shoulders and say, "That's
new? Isn't that what we've always been doing in farm management research?"
Certainly farm management, as it evolved,was a multidisciplinary attempt to look
at the entire range of factors involved in running a farm enterprise. Gilbert,
Norman, and Winch discuss briefly the relation of farming systems research and
farm management research: