Explore on-farm aims at improving sustainable production of rainfed wheat-based farming systems through increasing understanding of the effects of localized environmental factors on crop and varietal performance. It is apparent that there is no single management package that will meet the requirements of all farms within a region and, therefore, choices of appropriate practices need to be tailored to local conditions and circumstances. This publication proposes a process involving on-farm trials that first identifies local constraints or interlinked limitations that impinge on sustainable, optimal crop production. Once the limitations on the farm are identified, the guidelines suggest approaches to minimize or overcome them. Success is assessed both by yield increases and by gross financial returns and, where applicable, by sustainability measures.
The guidelines are written for agricultural researchers, but they also act as a vehicle for active involvement with extension officers and the farmers who carry out the trials on their own farms. They are presented as a series of seven interlinked chapters that, at the same time, may be used independently. The first two introductory chapters explain the necessity to work on-farm, how to conduct trials including basic methodologies, how to interact with farmers in cooperative joint-learning through on-farm trials, and how to think about the crop responding to its environment as a dynamic, live organism. The remaining chapters are thematic, each addressing an agronomic aspect of rainfed cereal-based farming systems.
The aim of each thematic chapter is to explain, in relatively simple language, a trial that will serve to shape general recommendations to local conditions that are intended to lead to a practical benefit for farmers. Practical benefits in rainfed environments may include an economic gain through increased farm production and quality of the end product and/or through lower costs in the system. Other expected benefits are better quality of soils, more efficient use of water and inputs, and improved cropping sequences taking advantage of crop biological nitrogen fixation and of crops that improve soil structure or reduce disease occurrence.
These guidelines are not static rules, but springboards or bases intended to stimulate a cycle of learning, thought and discussion among researchers, farmers and extension workers concerned. They follow the awareness of all crop producers that optimum productivity is a continually moving target that, in order to be met requires continually moving methodologies.
Mahmoud Solh
Director
FAO Plant
Production
and Protection Division
