ABSTRACT
The 1980s were a time of turmoil in tropical agricultural research. Conventional researchers were blamed for working in the isolation of their research plots, where the conditions only remotely resembled those in the farmers' fields, especially in Africa. The Farming Systems Research (FSR) approach wanted to reform agricultural research in such a way that its results would directly help farmers solve their constraints and exploit their potential by bringing research itself into farmers' fields. In 1984, the Institute's Farming Systems Program (FSP) was restructured into four research areas: Upland production systems, Wetland production systems, Agroforestry and Plantain research and On-Farm Research, plus a Socio-economic Unit. In most international institutes, separate units were therefore set up to bring the necessary change in attitude about, at International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) called On-Farm Research (OFR), because the term 'Farming Systems' was already in use. Soil fertility management remained an important line of research.
