The temporal dimension in farming systems research: the importance of maintaining flexibility under conditions of uncertainty

Abstract This paper addresses the importance of temporal processes as they affect the focus of Farming Systems Research (FSR), the small farm. Those involved in FSR need to develop approaches which recognize that the state of the production system they are concerned with in any particular annual cycle is in flux. It has emerged as a response to past sets of choices and will be influenced by future ones. FSR is concerned with improving future conditions, but in seeking to alter relationships between elements in the system it often fails to understand the process by which existing relationships evolved. There is a danger that if long-term interactions are ignored researchers will be unable to determine the most viable choice sets from the perspective of the farmer. It will be argued that FSR, as it is currently described, tends to over-simplify the systems it examines because it fails to adopt an approach which examines production in a multi-period rather than a single period context. Emphasis upon a longer time frame implies a different understanding of the system in which farmers may be seen as trading off immediate return for security and/or the opportunity to maximize profitability over the long term. Farmers have developed systems which allow them to maintain production within an environment in which physical conditions (rainfall), economic circumstances (crop prices) etc., may vary from year to year. The relative capacity of the system to respond or conform to changing or new situations may be defined as its flexibility. Three categories of flexibility can be defined. The first, incremental learning, represents changes in the ability of the farmer to evaluate future alternative action choices. The second, range of options, refers to the size of the choice set which is available in future periods. Finally the third category, resiliency, is a measure of the ability of the system to survive intact from period to period. As such it is an extreme example of the range of options flexibility mentioned above. Overall then the concept of flexibility tries to capture in a dynamic fashion the effect that a current decision has on the future opportunity set. A conceptual model is presented which emphasizes the importance of the three forms of adjustment flexibility in FSR. This model is then applied to a case study of the Mandara Mountains of Cameroon. The paper concludes that the current emphasis of FSR upon the relatively short-run workings of the system entails the risk of failing to understand the full complexity of the nature of decision-making and of the technical environment of production. Incorporation of a longer time frame into FSR may make it more complex but in its absence innovations may have unintended detrimental outcomes. Flexibility is an issue which should be considered in all phases of an approach to rural development as comprehensive as FSR.