Understanding Options For Agricultural Production (system Approaches For Sustainable Agricultural Development)
by G.Y. Tsuji /
1998 / English / PDF
15.6 MB Download
The first premise of this book is that farmers need access to
options for improving their situation. In agricultural terms, these
options might be manage ment alternatives or different crops to
grow, that can stabilize or increase household income, that reduce
soil degradation and dependence on off-farm inputs, or that exploit
local market opportunities. Farmers need a facilitating
environment, in which affordable credit is available if needed, in
which policies are conducive to judicious management of natural
resources, and in which costs and prices of production are stable.
Another key ingredient of this facilitating environment is
information: an understanding of which options are viable, how
these operate at the farm level, and what their impact may be on
the things that farmers perceive as being important. The second
premise is that systems analysis and simulation have an impor tant
role to play in fostering this understanding of options,
traditional field experimentation being time-consuming and costly.
This book summarizes the activities of the International Benchmark
Sites Network for Agrotechnology Transfer (IBSNAT) project, an
international initiative funded by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID). IBSNAT was an attempt to
demonstrate the effectiveness of understanding options through
systems analysis and simulation for the ultimate benefit of farm
households in the tropics and subtropics. The idea for the book was
first suggested at one of the last IBSNAT group meetings held at
the University of Hawaii in 1993.
The first premise of this book is that farmers need access to
options for improving their situation. In agricultural terms, these
options might be manage ment alternatives or different crops to
grow, that can stabilize or increase household income, that reduce
soil degradation and dependence on off-farm inputs, or that exploit
local market opportunities. Farmers need a facilitating
environment, in which affordable credit is available if needed, in
which policies are conducive to judicious management of natural
resources, and in which costs and prices of production are stable.
Another key ingredient of this facilitating environment is
information: an understanding of which options are viable, how
these operate at the farm level, and what their impact may be on
the things that farmers perceive as being important. The second
premise is that systems analysis and simulation have an impor tant
role to play in fostering this understanding of options,
traditional field experimentation being time-consuming and costly.
This book summarizes the activities of the International Benchmark
Sites Network for Agrotechnology Transfer (IBSNAT) project, an
international initiative funded by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID). IBSNAT was an attempt to
demonstrate the effectiveness of understanding options through
systems analysis and simulation for the ultimate benefit of farm
households in the tropics and subtropics. The idea for the book was
first suggested at one of the last IBSNAT group meetings held at
the University of Hawaii in 1993.
