A KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEMS-APPROACH TO AGROFORESTRY RESEARCH AND EXTENSION

Current understanding of the ecology of agroforestry practices, partic ularly traditional practices in the tropics, is frequently qualitative , sparse, and uncertain. Relevant information may be dispersed and com plementary but not immediately compatible. Established approaches to d ecision support, which tend to be deterministic, demand more precise b ase information than is generally available for agroforestry practices . As a result, they are of limited utility in helping development prof essionals plan research and extension activities. In order to provide decision support at an appropriate level, domain-specific software was developed. This provides the user with an environment for creating kn owledge bases by collating knowledge from a range of sources; facilita tes the synthesis of that knowledge and its evaluation; and thereby fa cilitates its use in planning agroforestry research and extension. The software allows knowledge-base creation and exploration through text or diagram interfaces and incorporates a suite of inference mechanisms . A task language allows the combination of these mechanisms to be cus tomized. This provides a powerful alternative to existing, less formal approaches to evaluating the current state of knowledge on interdisci plinary, problem-oriented topics as a basis for planning development a ctivities.