Institutional linkages for farming systems development

摘要

Within the agricultural sector, growth has been uneven. As most productivity gains have been concentrated in irrigated crops, many planners are giving increased attention to rainfed areas to seek new avenues for growth and to tackle, simultaneously, poverty and resource degradation. Furthermore, in many countries a general reorientation towards system approaches to rural development is apparent; and towards bottom-up models emphasizing farmer participation. There is thus increased support for diversified farming systems, balanced input use, gender analyses, partnerships of Government agencies, NGOs and private sector, and linkage among research, support service and policy advisory institutions. Because the FSD approach is founded on the principles of multidisciplinarity and participation, it automatically faces issues of integration and institutional linkage. Although FSD impact depends critically upon the effectiveness of institutional linkages, these have received much less attention than the techniques of FSD per se. As these linkages are numerous and diverse, an analytical framework is proposed, Two linkages areas are discussed in depth: the well known area of research-extension-farmer linkages, and the less common farming systems-policy linkage.