Humidtropics Integrated Systems Conference

1. HISTORICAL TRAJECTORY OF FARMIMG SYSTEMS
RESEARCH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
D W Norman, Professor Emeritus, Kansas State University
Invited Keynote Address for Integrated Systems
Research for Sustainable Intensification in Smallholder
Agriculture Conference
IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria, March 3rd-6th, 2015

2. INTRODUCTION
• Reason for evolution (1960s on):
 Favourable homogenous areas – Green
Revolution (GR)
 Unfavourable heterogeneous areas – Farming
Systems Approach (FSA)

3. TOPICS COVERED
• Evolution and methodology of FSA/FPA
(farmer participatory approaches)
• Why farmer empowerment inhibited
• Justification for further
farmer empowerment
• Future of FSA/FPA and
innovation platforms

4. • Village studies (1960s)
 Anthropological/farm management studies
 Much descriptive” information -- findings:
EVOLUTION OF FARMING SYSTEMS
APPROACH (FSA)

5. EVOLUTION OF FSA (Con)
 Farmers:
F Understood their production
environments
F Practiced sound and rational
farming systems (e.g., crop
mixtures)
F Natural experimenters

6. Schematic Representation of Some Farming System Determinants
ELEMENTS: SOCIO-ECONOMIC
BIO-PHYSICAL
FACTORS : EXOGENOUS ENDOGENOUS PHYSICAL BIOLOGICAL
CHEMICAL
MECHANICAL
COMMUNITY STRUCTURES
NORMS AND BELIEFS
EXTERNAL
INSTITUTIONS
OTHER
INPUT
SIDE
OUTPUT
SIDE
FARMING
HOUSEHOLD
DECISION MAKER(S)
(FARM)
CONSUMPTION
SAVINGS
INCOME
INPUTS: LAND CAPITAL LABOUR MANAGEMENT
PROCESSES: OFF-FARM CROPS LIVESTOCK
FARMING SYSTEM
Note: Broken lines represent the results of the farming system.
Source: Norman, et. al. (1982)

7. EVOLUTION OF FSA (Con)
• Recommended technologies:
 “Blanket” technologies often unsuitable
 Incompatibility with socioeconomic environment
 Standard evaluation criteria flawed
• Conclusion:
 Treating farmers as “objects” bad
 Farmers:
F Had skills and expertise
F Technology development: should be involved ex
ante rather than just ex post

8. EVOLUTION OF FSA (Con)
• Systems perspective maintained
• 4 phases in evolution of FSA (Figure 1):
 Predetermined focus
 Whole farm focus
 Natural resource focus
 Sustainable livelihoods focus
• Ratio of variables to parameters
increased

10. EVOLUTION OF FSA (Con)
• Principle, farmer involvement -- 4 stages:
 Description/diagnosis
 Identification of opportunities and solutions to
problems
 Evaluate most promising ones
 Disseminate best ones
• Approach:
 Interdisciplinary
 Iterative and dynamic
• 1976: Bamako, Mali

11. Farming Systems Development Approach to Technology Generation
1. Descriptive/
Diagnostic
STAGES
Current Farming
System
(Hypothesis Formulation)
Support Systems
and Policy
Farmers
2. Design
Use Body of
Knowledge from
Experiment
Station
RM RI
3. Testing RM FI
FM FI
4. Dissemination
Modified Farming
System
KEY: R = Research (Technician)
F = Farmer
M = Managed
I = Implemented

12. EVOLUTION OF FSA (Con)
(Late ‘70s – Early 80s)
• Pre-Determined Focus
 Started in CGIAR institutions with specific
crop mandates
 Looked at improving one crop enterprise
 Rationale:
Easiest methodologically
Improvement of major
crop enterprise would
have greatest impact on
whole farming system

13. EVOLUTION OF FSA (Con)
(Late ‘70s – Early 80s)
• Start of Whole Farm
Focus
 Started in national
(NARSs) programmes
Substantial donor support
More variables to parameters
 Rationale:
More compatible with NARSs’ mandates – area
based farming system teams
Better able to address farmers’ needs

14. EVOLUTION OF FSA (Con)
(Late ’80s - Early ’90s)
• Natural Resource Focus
 Increasing concern with
ecological degradation
because:
incompatibility between
production and ecological
sustainability
Poor farmers forced to
sacrifice sustainable
practices
Overuse of “external” inputs

15. EVOLUTION OF FSA (Con)
(Late ’80s - Early ’90s)
 Two approaches for dealing with this:
Farmer participation:
 Shift farmers’ perception from “foreseen” to
“felt” problem
 Methodologies for “modelling” bioresource
flows with farmers have evolved
CGIAR: congruency of productivity improvement
and ecological sustainability via eco-regional
research

16. EVOLUTION OF FSA (Con)
(Late ’80s - Early ’90s)
 Challenges:
Many solutions locational
specific
Assessing progress in
improving ecological
sustainability takes time
Poor farmers have to improve
productivity and
environmental sustainability
simultaneously

17. EVOLUTION OF FSA (Con)
(Early ’90s until Now)
• Sustainable livelihood focus
 High ratio of variables to parameters
 Distinct features:
Improves livelihoods through addressing:
 All activities (farm and off-farm)
 Asset sets
 Entitlements
 Social relationships
Focuses on most vulnerable households

18. Sustainable Livelihoods Framework
Key
H = Human Capital S = Social Capital
N = Natural Capital P = Physical Capital
F = Financial Capital
VULNERABILITY
CONTEXT
• SHOCKS
• TRENDS
• SEASONALITY
LIVELIHOOD ASSETS
H
N
FP
S Influence
& access
TRANSFORMING
STRUCTURES &
PROCESSES
STRUCTURES
• Levels of
government
• Private
sector
• Laws
• Policies
• Culture
• Institutions
PROCESSES
LIVELIHOOD
STRATEGIES
LIVELIHOOD
OUTCOMES
• More income
• Increased
well-being
• Reduced
vulnerability
• Improved food
security
• More sustainable
use of NR base
I
n
o
r
d
e
r
t
o
a
c
h
i
e
v
e

19. PROGRESS ASSESSED:
METHODOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS
• Important methodological
developments:
 Interaction with farmers
-- RRA and PRA
techniques:
Enabled systematising
farmers’ knowledge/
opinions
Farmers’ relationship --
contractual to collaborative
 Gender related issues
incorporated

20. PROGRESS ASSESSED:
METHODOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS (Con)
 New trial types :
Researcher (R), Farmer (F)
 Managed (M), Implemented (I)
 RMRI – traditional
 RMFI and FMFI – “learn by doing”

21. PROGRESS ASSESSED:
METHODOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS (Con)
 Involving farmers in participatory :
Variety selection(PVS)
Plant breeding (PPB) activities
 On-farm trial and recommendation analysis
improved through modified stability analysis

22. PROGRESS ASSESSED:
METHODOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS (Con)
• Approaches to involving
farmers more effective
through:
 Farmer groups (formal and
informal):
Empower farmers
Improve efficiency of
research/development
process
 Farmer groups allocating
research funds
 Greater interaction between farmers and
other stakeholders -- “innovation platforms!”

23. FARMERS NOW TRULY EMPOWERED?
 Do experimental
designs often aim
for technical
optimum?
 How often are RMFI
and FMFI trials
done?
• Are they? For example in technical
research:
 Are needs of disadvantaged farmers
considered?

24. FARMERS NOW TRULY EMPOWERED? (Con)
• Why farmers not fully empowered:
 Many “stakeholders” still unconvinced/lack
ability to interact with “poorly educated”
farmers
 Multi- rather than inter-disciplinary
approaches are common
 Inappropriate reward systems – based on
“good science” not relevancy

25. FARMERS NOW TRULY EMPOWERED? (Con)
• Positive impact of FSA
inhibited by:
 Farmers not sufficiently
empowered
 Weaknesses in farmer-
research-development
continuum:
Limited financial resources
Vertical organisational structure
in institutions

26. WHY MORE FARMER EMPOWERMENT NECESSARY
• Requirement – by 2050:
 Produce 60% more food in an ecologically
sustainable manner
 Address malnutrition by diversifying diets with
“nutrition dense foods”

27. WHY MORE FARMER EMPOWERMENT NECESSARY
(Con)
• Challenge:
 Now more complex than prior to GR
 Systems perspective essential because will
require:
Many combinations of management practices and
enterprises
Use (re-adoption!) of supportive biological
processes
Results which often incremental, not revolutionary

28. WHY MORE FARMER EMPOWERMENT NECESSARY
(Con)
• In FSA require:
 More emphasis on Phases 3 and 4 – complex
 Less emphasis on Phases 1 and 2 – simpler
• Farmer empowerment critical because
many relevant solutions are:
 Locational specific -- farmers have intimate
knowledge
 Often incremental not revolutionary results
– farmers have to take “ownership”

29. WHY MORE FARMER EMPOWERMENT NECESSARY
(Con)
• Farmer empowerment important in:
 Supporting changes in the farming paradigm
 Benefitting from the globalisation process
 Facilitating necessary, and benefitting from,
collective action

30. WHY MORE FARMER EMPOWERMENT NECESSARY
(Con)
• Changing the farming paradigm:
 From intensive tillage (interventionist) to
no-till /minimal tillage (agro-ecological)
 Specific examples:
Conservation agriculture (CA)
System of rice intensification (SRI)
 Emphasise:
Reduced external inputs
Exploiting natural biological processes/
relationships
 Require locational specific adjustments

31. WHY MORE FARMER EMPOWERMENT NECESSARY
(Con)
• Benefitting from globalisation process
 Traditionally farming households – both
production and consumption unit
 To benefit from globalisation process help
farmers:
On how to calculate profits and budget

32. WHY MORE FARMER EMPOWERMENT NECESSARY
(Con)
Improve their knowledge of marketing chain
(mobile phones)
Improve their bargaining power in market place
(collective buying/selling, adding value through
processing)

33. WHY MORE FARMER EMPOWERMENT NECESSARY
(Con)
• Facilitating necessary, and benefitting
from, collective action
 Requires enhancement of social capital
 Necessary for establishing equitable and
ecologically sustainable livelihood systems
 Examples:
Watershed management
Promoting specific collective action in a region
(See previous slide) – collective action on buying
inputs and marketing products

34. MULTI-STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT VIA
INNOVATION PLATFORMS
• Promotes/facilitates interactive multi-
stakeholder engagement/participation
• Important for:
 Meeting challenges discussed – incremental
not revolutionary changes likely to be
dominant
 Improving efficiency and interactivity of
farmer-research -development continuum
• Complements and potentially improves
payoff of FSA activities – scaling out and
up potential

35. CONCLUDING COMMENT
• Still role for reductionist approach
• Now need greater emphasis on Phases 3
and 4 than 1 and 2 of FSA

36. CONCLUDING COMMENT (Con)
• Use farmers’ (men and women!) minds --
informal modeling function -- important
• Innovation platforms provide means of
improving effectiveness and payoff from
FSA
NAGODE!
Dnorman@k-state.edu
Hard copies of paper
available