Abstract
Agricultural experimentation in a developing country encounters a number of problems not found elsewhere. For example, skilled scientists may be few and mostly they have been trained elsewhere, which means that they are not always well equipped to deal with the special problems of their own country. There is pressure to conduct very simple experiments. Even greater difficulties arise from the specification of objectives, especially as many of the farming systems that need to be improved have a cultural or religious basis that needs to be respected.
Four topics are discussed that have special relevance to the conditions of a developing country: (1) local control of environmental variation, (2) intercropping, (3) studies of reliability, and (4) systematic designs. A further section examines the transfer of technology.
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Pearce, S.C. (1985). Agricultural Experimentation in a Developing Country. In: Atkinson, A.C., Fienberg, S.E. (eds) A Celebration of Statistics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-8560-8_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-8560-8_22
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