Farming System Research and Development (FSRD) Approach

The FSRD approach is a relatively recent development in the field of agriculture system development and management. It was concept module in reaction to the traditional type of research which focuses mainly in an ideal farming environment. As such the result was found to be generally inappropriate to small scale farmers. The FSRD approach is small farmer centered and therefore, relevant to the overwhelming majority of upland farmers. It has four stages, which are given below:

• The Descriptive or Diagnostic Stage, in which the actual farming system is examined in the context of total environment to identify biophysical and socio-economic information (see study of biophysical and socio-economic condition section above), and constraints farmers face (that may be shortage of fodder and forage, fuel wood and timber, and soil fertility loss and soil erosion, and land degradation etc) and to determine the potential flexibility in the farming system in terms of timing, unused resources, etc. An effort also is made to understand the goals and motivation of farmers that may affect their efforts to improve the farming system.
• The Design Stage, in which a range of strategies is identified that are thought to be relevant in dealing with the constraints determined in the descriptive or diagnostic stage.
• The constraints are ranked according to their severity (fodder and forage, fuel wood and timber supply and soil fertility loss, soil erosion and land degradation etc), and potential solutions are identified after determining what flexibility exists in the farming systems currently practiced.
• An evaluation is made of the proposed solutions before putting them into practice.
• The Testing and Implementation Stage, in which one or more promising strategies such as fodder, forage, firewood and timber, soil fertility improvement and soil erosion control, arising from the design stage, are examined and evaluated under term conditions to determine their suitability for producing desirable and acceptable changes in the existing farming system.
• The Dissemination and Impact Evaluation Stage, in which the strategies that were identified and screened during the design and testing stages are extended to farmers.