Discussion on sustaining agriculture
This issue of Ileia Newsletter does not have a special theme. We return to themes of earlier issues, particularly technology development by farmers. Several other articles are included on for example participatory rural development, livestock and water management.
Table of contents:
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3 - 6written by Wim Hiemstra , Coen ReijntjesInnovation and adaptation of technologies to sustain agriculture have always been implicit activities of farmers. Sustaining the production capacity of the land, to secure the continuity of livelihood during the life-time of the farmer but also to ensure that children may find a living on the family land, has been and will always be an important aspect of the struggle for survival of small farmers. It can even be seen as the driving force behind agricultural change, in any case for farmers who do not have other alternatives to make a living.
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7 - 9written by Jennifer A. McCrackenSome degree of local participation is relatively easy to achieve in the information-gathering stages of rural development planning. The local inhabitants are able to participate as information providers and if an informal interviewing approach is used (i.e. without a fixed questionnaire) the respondents can also help determine what topics are investigated -i.e. the ones which they feel are most important. But how can they play a more active role as information gatherers and what about the analysis and presentation of the information -what mechanisms are there to incorporate their participation during these stages too? It is in these later stages that the important decisions are made about the appropriate development activities/innovations for the area, so participation by the inhabitants of the area is most vital here. These issues were considered and several participatory mechanisms tested, in recent Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) work in Gujarat. This article will describe how the analysis and presentation, as well as information collection, was contributed to by the villagers, and will briefly outline some of the issues which arose concerning the participatory objectives.
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10 - 12Having gone through the October 1988 issue of ILEIA on Participatory Technology Development and some of the references mentioned in it, one should be very pleased to find that farmers' participation in rural development is receiving more and more attention, even from mainstream scientists. Every development worker with his or her heart in the right place should applaud these bottom-up strategies.
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13 - 15written by Pieter VereijkenAs doubt about the perspectives of current agriculture is growing, interest in alternative systems of production is increasing. As a result, many new research activities have been started. Currently, most initiatives are taken in the field of plant production. In Europe, a Working Group of the International Organisation for Biological Control (IOBC) is trying to develop integrated arable farming systems inspired by the aims and methods of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). The two oldest projects are the Lautenbach experimental farm near Stuttgart (West Germany) and the Nagele experimental farm of the Ministry of Agriculture in the Netherlands.
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16 - 17written by Leonard PeriesThe National Aural Conference, a local NGO in Sri Lanka, began working on alternatives to chemical inputs in agriculture way back in 1973. At that time the government had established several large youth farms chiefly to meet the problems of youth employment. The NAC had also 15 youth farms in different parts of the country. These youth farms were intended, inter alia, to propose new approaches to development planning in a 65-70% rural set up that is Sri Lanka.
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18 - 18written by N.A. GworgworFor the most part, Northern Nigeria is situated in the geographical region of the West African Savannah. It is characterized by an open grassland with few scattered trees and a lot of shrubs. The rainfall pattern is seasonal with a wet season varying from 5-6 months in its lower part to about 2-3 months in the upper north where it borders the Sahara. The dry season is usually longer than the wet season. The agricultural production is subject to rainfed conditions with mostly sorghum, millet, groundnut, cowpea and cotton as the dominant crops.
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19 - 19written by Anura S. WidanapathiranaThe article 'Water Harvesting for plant production in Sub-Saharan Africa', which appeared in ILEIA Newsletter Vol.4, No.4 is interesting and touches on most of the important points concerning the subject. However, there are several issues that the article does not discuss. The objective of this note is to surface some of these issues and present their actual state of art.
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20 - 21written by G. Taube , C. MersmanShengereza Kimweri is a farmer of Longoi, Usambara Mountains. Like many villagers he is looking for alternatives in agriculture, since farming has become quite a risky exercise, far from producing a satisfactory farm income. Currently applied cropping patterns on his 2.5 ha farm date back to colonial times, when crop prices made farmers change their traditional production patterns of a variety of staple foods towards maize and beans as major crops planted in monoculture.
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22 - 23written by Johan H. KoeslagThe guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) is called cuy, cobayo or curi in Spanish. This animal is, just like the llama and alpaca, a pre-Colombian domestic animal kept in the Andean region. Even today, its distribution coincides with the area of influence of the ancient Inca Empire. Besides being an important source of protein-rich meat, in traditional regions it is also used by local 'witches' in curing human illnesses.
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