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 It is important to understand that in both farm management and farming
systems research the increased commercialization and increased penetration of
capitalism has made a sharp impact on the farm family, but the way that has
occurred is very different in the Third World when compared to the developed
world. Perhaps a good way of seeing this is through understanding where in the
United States farm management as a science first evolved.

 In the United States, farm management research was first developed in the
Northeast and the Midwest (Case.and Williams, 1957), where independent farm
families controlled the land and provided the vast majority of their own labor.
It developed much more slowly in the south, where agriculture was dominated by
the sharecropper-tenancy type of organization that tied the farm family on the
land closely to the landowner for direction and financing. That separation of
the factors of production in the farming system reduced efficiency. Access to
land was divided from ownership. Management was split. Labor was separated
from the land and, as a result, production credit was difficult to obtain. When
the goal of profit maximization was addressed in the South, one had to ask,
"Profit maximization for whom?"

 This is certainly the case in much of Latin America today. The conditions
for effective farr management research do not exist as we know them. However,
farming systems research, using many of the early principles of farm management
research (particularly those that closely linked agronomy with the diverse
goals of the farm family), can be useful. But, in order to bemost effective, we
have to set aside our assumptions about the conditions under which research and
extension take place.

 First, the small farmer, particularly women farmers, will not have the
political organization and clout to influence the programs presumably designed
to help them. Second, agricultural researchers and extension workers will. not
have the same social, cultural, and economic, backgrounds as the small farmers.
In particular, they will not have the same gender-related experiences. They
will not know what it is to carry water, gather wood, cook meals, and nurse
babies while also planting, harvesting, and processing crops. That lack of
understanding may provide a large constraint to the development of appropriate
technology and the adoption of innovation to increase productivity by female
farmers. Third, manual work, particularly women's work, wiil be devalued by
those who work with zheir "heads." Respect and appreciation of the manual
aspects of productive and reproductive work have to be developed. Fourth,
temporary male migration, in order to increase family cash income, will leave
women in charge of farming. No longer can we assume, "the farmer, he...."
Fifth, men usually have more control than women over the factors of production
-the inputs to the farming system (land, labor, capital, technology, and
management) both on and off farm. We must understand these separations and
devise mechanisms to overcome the constraints they entail. Sixth, because of
farmer's economic marginality, the integrative function between research and
application performed by private enterprise in more lucrative settings will
have to be assumed by other mechanisms, probably with strong public sector
participation. Seventh, we must deal with marginal farmers, who are more
likely than large-sca!e farmers to be women, rather than simply deal with
the modern or potentially modern sector, which is male-dominated. Much of
domestic food production, as contrasted with export crop production, is done
by Third World women.