Mountains in balance

Table of contents:

• Dear Readers
  2 - 2
• A mountain of opportunities - Editorial
  4 - 6
  written by Hans Carlier
  After living and working for more than 15 years in mountainous regions in Kenya, Peru, Ecuador and Nepal, guest editor Hans Carlier was asked to give his view on sustainable development of mountain agriculture. The author argues that mountain people themselves hold the key to sustainable development, not outsiders. This needs to be recognised before the mountain of opportunities and wisdom is eroded beyond repair.
• Indigenous knowledge re-valued in Andean agriculture
  7 - 8
  written by Miguel A. Altieri
  Despite the increasing industrialisation of agriculture, the great majority of the farmers in the Andes are peasants, or small scale producers. They still farm the valleys and slopes with traditional and subsistence methods. After centuries of cultural and biological evolution, traditional farmers have developed and inherited complex farming systems, adapted to the local conditions. These have helped them to sustainably manage harsh environments and meet their subsistence needs, without depending on mechanisation, chemical fertilisers, pesticides or other technologies of modern agricultural science.
• Cultivando para el futuro: review
  9 - 9
  written by Carmen Felipe-Morales
  Among recent literature on agriculture and sustainable development has emerged a book that makes a substantial contribution to the theme, says Carmen Felipe-Morales, president of the Peruvian Network for Ecological Agriculture (RAE-Peru). Cultivando para el Futuro was first published by ILEIA in English (Farming for the Future) in 1992 and written by Coen Reijntes, Bertus Haverkort and Ann Waters-Bayer. Based on an extensive literature review, and numerous local experiences collected by ILEIA in different countries, the authors have managed to develop a text which adequately combines the theoretical aspects which underpin the notion of sustainable agriculture, with aspects of the practical application of theoretical principles to particular local conditions. (ILEIA) Spanish version available from Nordan Comunidad, Avda. Millan 4115, 12900 Montevideo, Uruguay.
• Lameo, an indigenous method of soil conservation
  10 - 11
  written by Bert Boer , Ramón Castellón
  Farmers in the Andes have many traditional ways of enriching and conserving their soils. For example, a technology called may kas, refers to a process of enriching the soil, using nature s means of transportation of mineral and organic materials, as is common in high mountain regions.
• Water means life
  12 - 13
  written by Juan Carlos Maita , Michiel Verweij
  Before we had these reservoirs we could only farm in the wet season and everyone migrated to make money to survive. Now with these reservoirs we can work on our own land year round and we produce a surplus to sell at the market. These ponds give us hope for our community and our children, says Máximo Gonzales from Oloy, Bolivia. It is one of the many comments that echo throughout the community, praising the life giving lagunas or reservoirs.
• Burning in hillsides farming
  14 - 15
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  written by Helle Munk Ravnborg , María del Pilar Guerrero , Jacqueline A. Ashby , Jorge E. Rubiano
  Experiments with a stakeholder approach for conflict resolution.
• Diversity in mountain agriculture
  16 - 17
  written by Vir Singh
  One of the major negative consequences of the Green Revolution agriculture in the highly transformed agro-ecological zones in India is the emerge of monocultures. It is now self-evident that erosion of biodiversity or maintenance of monocultures leads to an increase in ecological vulnerability and unsustainability. Due to high degree of inaccessibility, however, some marginal areas, for example mountains of the Himalayas, could not be brought under Green Revolution cover and hence still harbour a very high magnitude of biodiversity.
• Livestock and soil fertility: a double bind
  18 - 18
  written by BR Joshi , SC Ghimire
  Nepal has one of the highest densities of animals per unit of land, amounting in the hills and mountains to 267 cattle, 139 buffaloes, 51 sheep and 260 goats per km2 of cultivated land (DFAMS, 1992). Average farm families rear 8 livestock units, comprising mainly cattle, goats, sheep and buffaloes (LMP, 1993). In some areas, pigs, poultry, equines, and yaks and their crosses are reared in addition.
• In-situ manuring: a traditional way to maintain soil fertility
  19 - 19
  written by K.D. Subedi
  In the hills of Nepal, in subsistence farming, the use of externally purchased inputs such as chemical fertilizers, is very difficult if not impossible.
• Trees: farmers' response to change
  20 - 21
  written by Rajesh B. Shrestha
  Farmers in the midhill areas of Nepal have been blamed for bringing about environmental degradation. It is said that they do it out of the sheer necessity to make a living from a fragile agro-ecosystem and that a rapidly expanding population of both people and livestock are the main culprit of deforestation and land degradation. This is also the basic assumption on which much rural development planning and intervention is still based in Nepal. But the direct link between farmer and land degradation is now questioned since this relationship appears to depend on various politico-economic factors as indicated by Blaikie and Brookfield (1987). Recently, studies have also shown that farmers themselves actively take initiatives in sustainable land-use practices such as increased tree growing on private farm land (Gilmour, 1995; Carter, 1995). Such intensification of tree growing was also witnessed in the villages of the Annapurna Conservation Area in the western midhills of Nepal.
• Agroforestry ties in with local knowledge
  22 - 22
  written by Guillermo Ferrer
  Small-scale livestock production in Córdoba, the central region of Argentina, is under severe pressure, largely because of the shortage of forage, but also from poor soil fertility due to the monoculture of maize and from erosion. A group of extensionists from the Agrarian Science Faculty of the University of Cordoba have been working in the area for several years, using participatory methods to try and help people resolve these problems and put agriculture on a more sustainable footing.
• Who pays for rural credit?
  23 - 23
  written by Rubén Gutarra Canchaya
  Potato production in the Azul Valley has attracted credit, but for many families it does not bring what they had hoped for. Improved yields bring erosion of land, genetic resources and farmers  knowledge, but hardly the profit farmers hope for.
• Learning with farmers how to document resources
  24 - 25
  written by Edith Fernandez-Baca
  As part of the learning process that ILEIA has initiated with its Peruvian partners from Huancayo and Cajamarca, a six day workshop took place in Huancayo to develop new communication strategies for assessing the potential of ecologically sound agriculture. Like in Ghana (see article by Reg Noble), the purpose of the exercise was to train partners in the field in documenting natural resources as known by the farmers. At the same time, the results of these inventories are the first inputs in the information base that is being built by ILEIA and its partners. The active participation of farmers is fundamental to obtaining and sharing information valuable for them, the researchers and technicians. This information can later be used by to jointly analyze existing problems and possible steps towards solutions.
• Visualising resources in Ghana
  26 - 27
  written by Reg Noble
  ILEIA and its Ghanaian NGO partners are beginning to document farmers  knowledge on natural resource management in farming communities in each of two pilot areas in the Upper East Region of Northern Ghana at Sandema and Langbinsi. This is the first step in working with these communities to explore the potentials and constraints for developing more ecologically sound agriculture.
• Kammu women suppress grass weeds with sesame
  30 - 30
  written by Kristina Lindell , Damrong Tayanin
  We received many positive reactions on last year s October issue of the ILEIA Newsletter on weeds. However, some writers rightly noted that we may have been a bit too positive on weeds. Often, they can be a real nuisance. Damrong Tayanin and Kristina Lindell wrote to us about a way to get rid of grass. Damrong Tayanin learned about it from his mother. Presently, he is working on a book on plants and animal in his home area. He writes on plants as such, where they grow and together with what other plants, how they look and smell, how they are used as food or medicine, and if they are used in rites and rituals.
• Economic evaluation of LEISA
  31 - 31
  written by Nico Heerink , Ruerd Ruben
  In the last ILEIA Newsletter (vol 11 no 4, page 30) a reaction by Mr. Widanapathirana was published on Economic evaluation of LEISA farming by Ruerd Ruben and Nico Heerink, published earlier (vol 11 no 2, pp 18-19). Here s a reaction of Ruerd Ruben on Mr. Widanapathirana s comments.