Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. The Project Area. 3. Socio-Economic Profile. 4. Participatory Technology Development Process.5. Outstanding Issues. 6. Impact Assessment. 7. Future Prospects.

Flood and water logging land situations are the natural features of Eastern India. These situations start from the foot hills of the Himalayas in Nepal and extended up to Bangla Desh covering the entire stretch of eastern India. The flood-prone basins of eastern India have their own traditional farming systems. Traditional technologies give low but stable yield. Improved technologies generated at experimental stations have not been able to outperform farmers’ traditional technologies. Efficacy of alternate technology development and dissemination process was explored through the Ford Foundation supported Farming Systems Research (FSR) programme in eastern India. The book deals with the approaches and experiences gained during implementing the FSR programme in a “Gandak basin” of Vaishali district in Bihar.The book highlights the role of people for developing local resource based technologies. While developing such technologies environment, ecology and social aspects were taken into account. This experience of the authors is being documented so that development workers working under similar situations can develop participatory technologies apart from directly using already developed appropriate technologies mentioned in this book. (jacket)