ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a Cropping Systems Research (CSR) project in Bangladesh as illustrative of some of the problems of the CSR model and suggests how a Farming Systems Research model, with its emphasis on the whole farm, has greater relevance for fulfilling the socioeconomic needs of the farmer. The CSR approach, despite its many strengths, especially in the arena of agricultural technology, places too little emphasis on the whole-farm. In 1980 the Bangladesh Jute Research Institute (BJRI) established a CSR project in Choto Kalampur, a Bangladesh village of 351 households and 1800 persons. Many of the problems associated with the BJRI Cropping Systems Research Project in Choto Kalampur can be rectified with the adoption of a Farming Systems Research approach. The future of the rural poor of Bangladesh as well as other parts of the world is only as good as the actions of the people responsible for planning, directing and implementing programs in directed social and economic change.
