THE DEVELOPMENT OF A QUANTITATIVE METHOD FOR SETTING RESEARCH PRIORITIES - A CRITICAL-ASSESSMENT

This article critically assesses an interdisciplinary research effort to build a new tool for conducting farming systems analysis (FSA). It was envisioned that this new tool, named quantified farming systems an alysis (QFSA), would overcome some of the problems that confront the c lassical FSA techniques. At the onset of this endeavour expectations w ere high and they have been presented at sever al international sympos ia (for example, at Bangkok, 1991, Colombo, 1992, and Wageningen, 1993 ). This article deals with one way of tackling the first phase of QFSA , i.e. the setting of research priorities for long-term development, w hich resulted in the farm level optimal resource allocation (FLORA) pr ocedure. The manner in which this was accomplished and the extent to w hich the anticipated results were achieved are evaluated. It is conclu ded that, although the way in which FLORA was eventually developed dif fered from what had been envisaged it offers a move objective and quan titative procedure for setting research priorities in view of long-ter m development goals. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.