RRA has a role to play in 'Northern' countries

The first RRA was carried out in Australia in 1988 with the aim of "forging closer links between researchers and farmers, utilising farmers' expertise and determining possibilities for future agronomic research in the area". It was also hoped to evaluate RRA as a "problem identification method in a developed country context". The RRA was carried out in two phases (exploratory and topical) with two teams of researchers from agricultural and social science backgrounds. The six most frequent problems, identified by producers and research team separately, are listed and a summary of the "action strategies" that were decided upon. Advantages of RRA over conventional survey methodologies included raising the profile of the School of Crop Sciences (who initiated the RRA exercise) in the Shire. The findings also supported the original assumption that "many of the problems that have been evident in developing countries are also evident in developed countries".