The Agrarian System Analysis and Diagnosis
The Agrarian System Analysis and Diagnosis, or shortly called Agrarian System is used for this study. It is an all-encompassing concept, capable of making sense of agricultural activities at a regional scale in a way that accounts for both ecological and socio-economic dimensions. This methodology is used as a holistic ap proach to understanding agricultural transformations at the regional level. This approach includes all the fundamental factors that influence farmers' decisions and practices with great ability to analyze agricultural transformations.
A French speaking agronomist created it during the 1970-1980s at the same time as the English concept about Farming Systems Research (FSR) approaches promoted by the Association for Farming Systems Research and Extension. But FSR is limited to technical and financial analysis of the farm and rarely takes into account the farm environment and historical change. This approach often uses the Rural Rapid Appraisal methodology associated with statistical analysis tools to perform farm typology (Cochet, 2012). The Multivariate Statistic analysis (actor analysis through principal component analysis; and cluster analysis) produces farm typology for the researchers to study in detail by choosing several farmers in each type of farming systems (Carmona et al.; Flanigan et al.; Daskalopoulou and Petrou, 2002; Senthilkumar et al., 2009; Carmona et al., 2010; Flanigan et al., 2014).
The Farming system, like the Agrarian System's production system framework can be used to determine how capable individual farmers are to organize their own farm but neither can be used in isolation to understand the dynamics of farming activity at a regional scale. Agrarian system method takes into account all social, economic and political aspects, which leads to an understanding of the agricultural evolution of the region (see Figure 1). The concept was redefined by Mazoyer as ‘‘a way of exploiting an agro-ecosystem that is historically defined and sustainable, adapted to the bioclimatic conditions of a given area, and responding to the social needs and conditions of the moment'', cited by (Cochet, 2012 ), p. 130.
There is also another tool called agricultural system analysis and modeling created within the same period, that helps in understanding the biophysical and human processes in relationship with the use of natural resources at different scales (field, farm, region, etc). This method sounds very similar to the agrarian system. It links agro-ecosystem (Biophysical system) and human (Farm management system) and integrates the key inputs and outputs in the simulation or modelling in order to explain farmers' decision to adopt any cropping system or animal husbandry (Belcher et al., 2004; Martin et al., 2012). This method has evolved to become increasingly specific with the integration of informatics system like SAM (Simulation Model using STELLA modelling software)(Belcher et al., 2004) and ASPSIM (Agricultural Production System SIMulator) (Adam et al., 2012), etc.
