We are glad to announce that Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RKMVERI) will be conducting a special colloquium on “Agricultural Systems Research at IRDM : Accomplishments and Future Plans” on 21 October 2022, 12 noon at Seminar Hall, Narendrapur Campus.

Speaker : Dr. Rupak Goswami, RKMVERI
Co-ordinator: Abhijit Chakrabarti

Agricultural sciences have become increasingly preoccupied with Systems thinking in the last three decades. However, systems research has remained confined to a handful of agricultural research institutes in India. My colleagues at the IRDM Faculty Centre have tried to mainstream systems research in agriculture in the last ten years. We have tried identifying the fundamental structures and processes in socioecological and agri-food systems and relating them to multiple system outcomes such as Technology adoption, Crop productivity, Farm sustainability, System resilience, and Women’s empowerment. The group has employed Mental modelling, Social network analysis, Farm typology study, Technology diffusion analysis, and Participatory appraisals in diverse contexts to understand system complexity in smallholder farms. In this talk, we narrate representative published and unpublished works and anticipate future research agendas of the group.