Skip to contentScholarGate
LibraryBookshelfDeskReview StudioAssistant
Sign in
Farming Systems Research and Extension/Evidence
Method evidence record

Farming Systems Research and Extension

Farming Systems Research and Extension (FSR/E) is an iterative, client-oriented research methodology that treats the smallholder farm as a whole interacting system rather than a collection of isolated crops, and designs technology around the actual circumstances and goals of homogeneous groups of farmers. Developed within CIMMYT and the wider CGIAR system from the 1970s and synthesized in Michael Collinson's 2000 history, FSR/E proceeds by diagnosing the whole farm, grouping farmers into recommendation domains who share circumstances, ranking their binding constraints, and then testing candidate technologies in farmer-managed on-farm trials whose results feed back into the next diagnostic cycle. Its defining commitment is that research priorities and experimental designs should follow from farmers' resources, constraints, and objectives, so that recommendations are not just statistically valid on a research station but adoptable on real fields.

Sources recorded, not reviewed

Source record

Citations copied verbatim from the method’s source record. No claim-level verification is inferred from them.

Farming Systems Research and Extension (FSR/E; Whole-Farm Diagnosis and On-Farm Adaptive Research)
Taxonomic method record · process-pipeline / food-agriculture-studies
  • Collinson, M. P. (Ed.) (2000). A History of Farming Systems Research. Wallingford, UK: CABI Publishing & FAO. · ISBN 9780851994055
  • Conway, G. R. (1987). The properties of agroecosystems. Agricultural Systems, 24(2), 95-117. · DOI 10.1016/0308-521X(87)90056-4
Open full method

Curated claims

Claims persisted in the evidence ledger, each with its own assessment.

No curated claims yet

This view does not invent a claim assessment when the ledger has none.

Related methods

Generated from the method graph and shown as machine-suggested relations — no evidence claim is inferred.

Same method familyAgroecosystem Analysismachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Same method familyMother-Baby Trial Designmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Same method familyParticipatory Varietal Selectionmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Same method familyRapid Market Appraisalmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.

Evidence status

Sources recorded, not reviewed

Bibliographic sources are present. Claim-level evidence review has not been performed.

Sources

2 recorded citations, copied from the method source record.

Actions

Open method page
ScholarGate

A content-first reference library for research methods — what each one is, how it works, and where it comes from.

Open data (CC-BY)

Explore

  • Library
  • Search the library…
  • Browse by field
  • Fields
  • Journey
  • Compare
  • Which method?

Reference

  • Subjects
  • Atlas
  • Glossary
  • Methodology
  • Philosophy

Your tools

  • Bookshelf
  • Desk
  • Chat

Company

  • About
  • Pricing
  • Contact
  • Suggest a method

Entries are compiled from published sources for reference. Verifying the accuracy and suitability of any information for your own use remains your responsibility.

© 2026 ScholarGate · A research-method reference library
  • Privacy
  • Cookies
  • Terms
  • Delete account