Farming System Research (FSR) :

FSR is an approach where research efforts view the whole farm as a system of interdependent components and their interaction with the physical, biological, and socioeconomic factors.

Working Modality of FSR :

• The FSR involves selecting target areas and farmers, identifying technical problems and production constraints, exploring possible solutions to problems under Farmer conditions, and disseminating these findings throughout the farming communities.
• The basic approach of FSR is to divide a particular site into the farming environment and client group.

Characteristics of FSR

1. Holistic perspective: FSR views the whole farm as a production unit and the household as a consumption unit.
2. Interdisciplinary co-operation: A farming system, like all systems, is an aggregate made up of interconnected components functioning together as coordinated parts.
3. FSR – Commodity research linkage: As technical production problems are identified for each subsystem, FSR seeks solutions in one form of technologies generated by previous commodity research which was conducted on stations.
4. Research extension linkage: FSR in extension is needed to accurately describe the farming system diagnose the problems and design and test new technologies at the farm level.
5. Farmer’s participation: FSR’s fundamental objective is to make technology generation more relevant to the goals, needs, and priorities.
6. Problem-solving approach: It is essentially operational research that identifies technical, biological, and socio-economic constraints at the farm level and then endeavors to develop technologies, which are feasible for the targeted farming households to adopt and alleviate those constraints.