BFRI Model for Research Planning and Priority Setting BFRI receives research projects from its outreach regional research stations and sub-stations prepared by individual scientists. These projects are first reviewed by the station chiefs, before recommended to the Headquarters. The Planning Division of the Institute at its HQ, initially evaluates and screens these projects, before they are sent to the Technical Committee constituted by the Board of Governors, with members from the concerned institutions. The proposals received from DOF or other agencies are also included in the plan. Upon receipt of final approval from the Technical Committee, the projects are placed before the Board of Governors for concurrence and guidance. The projects may be of different duration. However, the approved projects are compiled as Annual Research Plan and sent back to the research stations for implementation. The above system was followed till 1996. After 1996, BARC has standardized the project identification, priority setting and approval process, which is now followed by all the ARIs including BFRI. The revised system basically does not differ very much from the earlier one, except making it more participatory by organizing extra Annual Review Workshops. Research projects as identified by the individual scientists, stations, sub-stations are now required to be reviewed at the regional level workshops by Regional Technical Committee and participated by all stake holders. These programmes are then reviewed by the ARI Research Committee at the Head Quarters. ARIRC approved projects are again reviewed at the national level by Annual Programme Review Workshop and subsequently approved by the Technical Committee and Board of Governors. Flow Chart of Research Programme Identification and Review 
On-Farm Trials Besides on-station trials, field trials were conducted for adaptation of technologies in on-farm conditions. At least 30% of the research works have been tested in the farmer’s ponds. Farmer’s Advisory Services The Institute through its different Stations and Sub-Stations offered advisory services to the farmers on improved fish farming technologies, water parameters monitoring, feed quality, diseases control etc. Scientists of the institute also serve on national crises related to fisheries and environmental issues as and when deemed necessary. Farming Systems Research and Development (FSRD) Most of the farmers of Bangladesh are not well aware of proper integration among their different farming activities, which hinders their socio-economic development. The water resources are mostly used for domestic and irrigation purposes and fish were cultured in a traditional way, which could be used more effectively by integrating agriculture, fisheries and livestock component in a scientific way. Keeping the scarcity of resources in mind, aquaculture based FSRD program has been initiated since December 1997 by BFRI at Monoharpur village under Jessore district, which belongs to the Agro-Economic Zone (AEZ)-11. The site possesses potentials for farming systems research and development of fisheries as well as livestock resources, homestead gardening, introduction of high yielding crop, cropping pattern and integration of aquaculture along with other agro-based farming activities. The overall goal of the program was to optimize farmers’ economic benefit by incorporating aquaculture as a farming activity, recycling of inputs and different farming components available in households such as crop, fisheries, livestock etc. and to increase fish and other agro-based farm production at national level. A multidisciplinary site-working group discusses and formulates research and development programs of Jessore site, review the progress and modify as and when necessary. The farmers themselves, ARIs and BARC monitoring team, also monitor the farming activities of the targeted groups regularly. The total farm production, income, consumption, family nutritional aspects, general health status, education, status of the target group are being considered as the indicator of proper adoption of technologies for the socio-economic development of the farmers. It is expected that the client farmers will be capable of allocating their scarce resources effectively for optimizing farm production through adoption of FSRD based modern technologies. Employment opportunities in rural areas, income and nutritional status are being expected to be improved for adoption of FSRD program. | 
