© 2006 "Ground breaking stuff" Proceedings of the 13 th ASA Conference, 10-14 September 2006, Perth, Western Australia. Web site www.agronomy.org.au 1 Supporting farmers and agronomists to participate and learn about on-farm research to improve local farming practices David Lawrence 1 , Nick Christodoulou 2 , and Jeremy Whish 3 1 DPI&F, PO Box 102 Toowoomba. Queensland, 4350, Australia. Ph. 61+7 46 881617 Fax. 61+7 46881197 email david.lawrence@dpi.qld.gov.au 2 DPI&F, PO Box 310 St George. Queensland, 4487, Australia. email nick.christodoulou@dpi.qld.gov.au 3 CSIRO/APRSRU, PO Box 102 Toowoomba. Queensland, 4350, Australia. e-mail jeremy.whish@csiro.au Abstract On-farm research is increasingly being used to answer practical farming questions, often by applying existing theories to real farming decisions. However, this pursuit of greater relevance has often led to compromises in research designs, unclear results and frustration amongst farmers and scientists. This paper reports on ‘Doing successful on-farm research’ a workshop-based initiative that builds on the collective experience of the northern Farming Systems projects in north-eastern Australia, and the industry groups with which they have worked since 1995.‘Doing successful on-farm research’ subsequently provides a framework and a series of interactive activities to plan, conduct and interpret effective participatory on-farm research. The workshop approach helps people conduct on-farm research to suit their own needs and local conditions. It assists them to clearly identify their issues, develop research questions and decide the best approach to answer those questions with the appropriate rigour for their own situations. ‘Doing successful on-farm research’ workshops in the grains, cotton, sugar and grazing industries have proven valuable because they address four potential deficiencies in on-farm research and Farming Systems RDE more generally: (i) variable participation of scientists and farmers in on-farm research; (ii) the lack of clear guidelines for effective participatory practice and on-farm research nationally; (iii) limited support for on-farm research beyond the intensive investigations conducted by RDE agencies; and (iv) limited support for industry and farmers to contextualise information and research outcomes for specific individual circumstances and faster adaptation of technology. This may be a major contribution to balancing the demands for both relevance and rigour in grains RDE to support better decision-making from the results on farms. Key words On-farm research, participation, relevance, rigour Introduction A more sophisticated braiding of the ‘technical innovation’ tradition of RDE and the more participatory ‘human resource development’ alternative has long been suggested to overcome the limitations of the Transfer-of-technology (ToT) model alone in Australian RDE (Russell et al. 1989). Indeed, increased participation of the people who implement innovations has become a common thread in recent arguments for better planning and conduct of agricultural RDE throughout Australia (Murray 2000; Dart 2005). Yet, the traditional ToT paradigm has continued to underpin the structure of most RDE agencies in Australia (Guerin and Guerin 1994; Lawrence 2006). Agronomists have wanted to maintain precision and control in their research (Carberry, Hochman & McCown 2004) and so continued to use the research processes afforded by their training until a new technology or practice was ‘ready’ for farmers to ‘verify’ (Stroud & Kirby 2000). This traditional model has provided rapid use of new technologies and practices that have direct financial benefits, minimal complexity, acceptable risk, and are easily integrated into existing practices (Marsh 1998). However, this top-down approach has limitations when issues are complex and people have different understandings of the problem situation (Ridley 2005; Vanclay 2004). It may then create awareness of issues, but fail to translate this awareness into understanding or change (Blacket 1996). Indeed, people may have different values and not even recognise a problem, or may recognise a problem but require different or more specific information for their own situations. For example, the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) commissioned a review of RDE on nitrogen management, despite the fact, or perhaps because, it was one of the most studied topics in agriculture. This review identified a worrying gap between scientists’ understanding of nitrogen management and actual farming practices, and recommended more farmer participation in RDE to improve the balance between ‘understanding the science of nitrogen’ and ‘understanding how nitrogen was managed on farms’ (Henzell & Daniels 1995). As McCown (2001) argued, there was an opportunity to move from a predominant ‘policy research’ paradigm that produces knowledge