Maybe will be more interesting to assess the complexity of the farming systems on the principle of multi-functional farming systems and the stocks of water in main reservoir like soil etc. Also important will be to assess the landscape structure of farming land agricultural / non agricultural land to have a view on impact of land use on micro climate.

The major constraints of agricultural production in the south western coastal areas of Bangladesh are soil and water salinity of varying degrees, lack of fresh water for irrigation, slow soil drying pattern which are being augmented further due to climate change, requires suitable options of farming systems and component technologies.

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1554/2973

http://journals.khuisf.ac.ir/roce/files/site1/user_files_859f98/godadmin-A-10-2-7-2f10f8e.pdf

Hello Abul Hasnat

You have two questions:

what are the different farming systems? a research issue

which one is the best for your point? a development issue

they are two different issues and should be absolutely separated. We here focus on the first one: it is the most important because it provides the database you need for answering the second question or any other equivalent question

1) define the territory you are working on. for my own I use. I use PBRM (Saqalli et al. 2009): I know: it is my article and my stuff but this was designed for this purpose: usually we look only on what happens in several villages independently one from one another and between them and the whole regional scale. However, people moves a lot and many farming systems cannot work without integrating the costs of inputs and sales. Moreover, to asses farming systems, you have to discriminate the related territory along locally defined criteria.  meaning it is necessary to define what are the different geographical units.

2) you build your village sample and you interview as much families/households as possible (depending on logistics, money, time & manpower). You cannot look for representativeness (you need hundreds of farms)  so you look for diversity exhaustivity, i.e. find as many different farms, as types as possible to cover the whole bunch. the principle of saturation can be used here: if after weeks, there are no new types appearing, it is done.  for discovering this diversity, connect with people along the snowball effect: one family gives you the name of others and so on. But the risk is to be "encliqued"  meaning appropriated/adopted by one side of the population (the wealthiest, the poorest, or other things...) so balance the snowball effect with a house sample (one house out of ten for instance

3) during interviews, ask data on the farming history (for the last 5 years, lets say) to avoid norms. Try to separate between the different sectors (for livestocks, along species (cattle/goat/sheep) and uses (milking/not milking); for crops the same but do integrate altogether associated crops as one action). for each, you can establish the yield/production (average and deviation).  collect prices with people (then check on markets afterwards: maybe differences will be connected to calendar variations!) so you got the gross product. include costs and then you got the margins.

settle this along the three resources (manpower, capital & land) & especially the rarest resource

for risks, list all of them for each production. why? because people tend to consider farmers as focused on their farming production system, while they are shifting often. by listing along each production, you may create new production systems as a combination of productions, corresponding to situations where some of these productions are not valuable.

thereby, you may here have the list of production systems, along gains and along risks

Please review the information from the Rodale Institute farming systems trial. Through a biologically based farming system it was able to eliminate over 50% of carbon footprint by using legumes and cover crops eliminating ammoniated fertilizer. Crop crops related to the system yielded increases in soil organic matter making the system greenhouse gas positive eliminating the debt from inputs and giving total withdrawls from the atmosphere related to sequestration of both Carbon and Nitrogen as a soil benefit. You should consider using that plus the use of System Rice Intensification which results in more partitioning of rice growth as roots. If you would provide more information on the char systems and crops and climate I would be happy to brainstorm on opportunities from my experience.

We have developed and are carrying out in Indonesia an improved agricultural extension approach that could be of interest to you in Bangladesh as well. We have called it "Science Field Shops (SFSs)", as learning meetings between scholars, farmers and extension intermediaries. See the attached file. We will be available for any questions. Kees Stigter 

Dear Paul Reed Hepperly, in the char area main problem is soil salinity which gradually increase from the month of December and rose picks in the month of March. The salinity ranges from 2 to more than 20 dS/m. Only in the rainy season rice was cultivated and in some cases few cash crops like groundnut, watermelon, soybean, mungbean, grass pea(relay crop), chilli, linseed also cultivated. Most of the household rear poultry and cattles but during dry season there was not enough feed. Majority of households family members migrated during the dry season for alternative income especially moves to the city. Annual rainfall vary 1800 to 2200 mm which most of the rainfall occur during July to October. Another problems is drainage which hampers rainfed rice cultivation.

Please look a the farming systems of your interest, then examine different attributes that may be impacted. For examples, you could look at, as others mentioned, soil water content, soil colour, plant characteristics and the vigor, weed species and densities, population dynamics of weeds, pest/insect species and populations, damages made by different pests, diseases, and occurrence, yield variation, and many measurable and observable (non-measurable) , and analyze data.  This will help develop more interesting indicators based on your observations.

Vulnerable Assessment with seasonal crop pattern in terms of soil, climatic and irrigation pattern will be the useful to assess climate change. This should interlinked productivity, flowering and fruiting variation.

Thank you 

I believe the wisdom of having legume to provide Nitrogen for the rice crop is wise and it would greatly reduce the issues with salts since ammoniated fertilizer would contribute to that issue. Another approach would be the utilization of Azolla and the inclusion of fish culture. When you look at combating issues with salt the use of gysum and the status of organic matter comes to mind. If biochar could be used as a cooking fuel and waste used as a part of compost it would be very useful. It would appear the mixing a winter vegetable for dry season and the rice as a main crop has value. I do think all the information on System Rice Intensification should be reviewed and selection of your variety for salinity issues might be key.  For the greenhouse gas issues the biggest areas remain eliminating ammoniated fertilizer dependency and even more improve assuring the increase and return of Carbon and Nitrogen builds and not depletes the soil 

Hi Abul Hasnat,

Glad to see you have already received several insightful suggestions. Farming systems is a socio-ecological-technical system. As far as its assessment is concerned it involve program assessment, ecosystem assessment and technology assessment. There are not many literature that integrate these three disciplinary approaches to assessment.

You can read some of the literature that I suggesting. And watch out for a forthcoming article on reflexive interactive assessment that will be available soon.

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Abul Hasnat: Dear colleague suggest that you first try to access the information on the expected climate change scenarios for the region under study in addition to its complexity arising from different agricultural production systems converge is added which is a coastal area so the vulnerability to climate change of the territorial system of the region is more complex. Forecasts of various possible scenarios of climate change and its effects on agricultural production systems need to be addressed, one option would be to make a typology of agricultural production systems prevailing in the region and its spatial zoning, the predominant agricultural production systems identified should be characterized in terms of variables to assess their resilience to climate change. In this regard it should be noted that adaptation to climate change is not synonymous with resilience. Adapting to change is to some extent, conformist, passive, on the contrary, resilience is positively and without excessive delay or difficulties with the requirements and face unforeseen effects. Resilience means the ability of individuals and social systems to react appropriately at a time of an unforeseen crisis. With these elements the challenge of assessing the various farming systems in relation to climate change in the area of Char should also include the study of vulnerability and resilience of the territorial system of the region as a temporary space context, and pay special attention the human dimensions of the problem in the region. I suggest that you review the following general references about exploring from different points of view the problem in the Caribbean region. Best Regards. Dr. de la Colina Rodríguez

http://repositorio.geotech.cu/jspui/bitstream/1234/216/1/Resiliencia%20al%20cambio%20climatico.pdf

http://dspace.geotech.cu/jspui/handle/123456789/153

http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.4982.9285

dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.4982.9285