Construction of a generalised farm typology to aid selection, targeting and scaling of onfarm research

Summary

This paper presents a generalised, transparent framework for constructing farm typologies to categorise diverse smallholder farming systems, addressing the inherent subjectivity in typology construction. The authors quantify how different methodological decisions affect resulting farm classifications and have encapsulated the framework in an open-source RShiny application (TypologyGenerator) to improve reproducibility and enable end-users to make informed decisions about farm sampling design, intervention targeting, and scaling strategies.

UK applicability

Whilst the framework was developed with sub-Saharan African smallholder systems as a primary context, the generalised methodology and open-source tool may have application in UK farming system classification, particularly for targeting agri-environmental interventions and understanding diversity in UK farming typologies. However, direct applicability would depend on the availability of UK-specific farm data and validation against existing UK farm classification systems.

Key measures

Impact of subjective decisions on farm typology classification outcomes; transparency and reproducibility metrics in typology construction methodology

Outcomes reported

The study developed and validated a generalised framework for constructing farm typologies that clarifies subjective decisions in farm classification and quantifies their impacts on resulting typologies. The framework was implemented as an open-source RShiny application (TypologyGenerator) to improve transparency and reproducibility in farm typology construction.

Topic tags