Microclimate management

Table of contents:

• Important political support for sustainable agriculture: World Commission on Environment and Development urges `ACTION NOW'
  3 - 4
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  written by ILEIA editorial team
  In 1983, the General Assembly of the United Nations appointed a Commission on Environment and Development to formulate a global agenda for change, to propose long term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development. The Commission was chaired by the Norwegian Prime Minister, Mrs. Harlem Brundtland. Mansour Khalid, former Deputy Prime Minister of Sudan, was vice-chairman. Representatives from more than 20 different countries were members. A few months ago, the Commission produced its report under the title: \'OUR COMMON FUTURE\'. The report is commonly referred to as \'The Brundtland Report\'. It gives a comprehensive analysis of the \'Common Concerns\', describes the \'Common Challenges\' and recommends \'Common Endeavours\'. In this article ILEIA reviews the part on food production.
• Traditional manipulation of microclimate factors: knowledge to be used
  5 - 6
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  written by Kees Stigter
  The American geographer Gene Wilken published in 1972 his review paper \'Microclimate management by traditional farmers\' in the Geographical Review, the \'house-journal\' of the American Geographical Society of New York. The paper went almost unnoticed into the \'fresh mulch\' of literature which covers each scientific field annually with ever increasing thickness. Very likely it was considered more of a curiosity than something to draw conclusions from on an approach to development problems! I knocked ten years later on the doors of the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva with the first results of a newspaper contest in Tanzania on the same subject. My paper was set up systematically along agro-meteorological lines implied by the work of Wilken. At that time I got a much more enthusiastic response.
• Traditional techniques of microclimate improvement: The TTMI project
  7 - 8
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  written by Kees Stigter
  and the TTMI- Teams in Kenya, Sudan and Tanzania It is more and more acknowledged that traditional agriculture merits to be and has already been rediscovered as a source of valuable knowledge for further development of present and new low- external input farming systems. This has become clear in the prevailing article in this issue and has been demonstrated in several earlier issues as well. The TTMI Project was established mid-1985 on earlier experience with M.Sc. research on some of such traditional techniques in Tanzania (e.g. Stigter, 1985b). It exclusively works with co-supervision of local Ph.D. research and associated M.Sc. research at Universities in developing countries. And the research umbrella is formed by the traditional techniques of microclimate improvement found to need priority attention: shading, mulching, wind protection and surface modification (Stigter, 1986).
• Microclimate and its utilization in Indian farming
  9 - 9
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  written by A. Balasubramainam
  Indian farmers, with their vast experience handed over from generation to generation by informal training, utilise the microclimate in a skilful manner in many agricultural practices. While some practices are designed to induce the microclimate some other practices either utilize the available microclimate or disturb the microclimate according to the crop\'s requirements. Some of the practices, involving microclimate, adopted by the farmers in Southern India which are quite interesting are given here.
• Mulching with organic materials: knowledge is power
  10 - 11
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  written by Kees Stigter
  To be in line with traditional tropical knowledge, a mulch can be best defined very broadly as a shallow layer that appears at the soil/air interface with properties that differ from the original soil surface layer.
• Possibilities of zero tillage for small-scale farmers in the tropics
  12 - 14
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  written by Paul W. Unger
  Zero tillage (or no-till, no-tillage, slot planting, ecofallow, sod planting, chemical fallow, or direct drilling) is a system of farming that uses herbicides or manual methods to control weeds and maintains crop residues on the soil surface. No seedbed is prepared; and planting is done with minimum soil disturbance, using coulter (iron blade fixed vertically in front of a ploughshare) or disk openers to cut residues and open a small slit for seed placement. Alternatively, seed can be placed in holes punched in the soil. The crop is not cultivated, and weeds are controlled chemically or manually.
• Farmers' participation and extension: No extension without participation. But what is the actual influence of those who participate?
  15 - 17
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  written by Paul G.H. Engel
  In the following pages I will address three different ways in which farmers and farm women participate in agricultural extension. By choosing adequate methods, an extension service may actively seek to increase the farmers' influence upon extension-related decision-making.
• Mr. Reddy's farm
  18 - 20
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  written by L. Narayana Reddy
  An eight acre farm, diversified, well managed and based on ecological principles, proves to be very profitable for a family of five persons (man, wife and three sons) and four farm labourers. This is the experience of Mr. Narayana Reddy, a 52-year-old Bangalore farmer.