Room for farmers
This issue of the Newsletter does not deal with a specific theme. Nevertheless this collection of encouraging articles seems to contain a common message: 'give room to innovating farmers'.
Table of contents:
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4 - 4written by Rosemary MorrowIn Vietnam, a country of small-scale farmers, an integrated farming system called VAC rapidly gains interest. Although their plots are small, most farmers can achieve surplus for the market from six months to two years after starting the work.
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5 - 5written by Tran Muoi
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6 - 6written by Rosemary MorrowIn the central coastal zone of Vietnam the sand dunes along the sea have been stripped of their vegetation by massive bombing during the war, deforestation and an increasing number of people and animals taking away whatever vegetation appears.
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7 - 8written by Milton FloresThe use of the velvet bean (Mucuna sp.), or fertiliser bean, has been largely spread in Honduras and Central America. It has been estimated that about 50,000 farmers are using mucuna in Central America as a whole.
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9 - 9Ever since man started to cultivate crops on this planet, he has been losing significant quantities of grains by the vermin, rats and mice. Three pairs of rodents cause ten times greater damage through their excreta. It has been estimated that in India, we lose 7 to 8 million tonnes of food grains every year due to rodents and the loss is seven thousand million rupees.
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10 - 10written by Bernard GuriAs part of her human resource development programme, the Ecumenical Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (ECASARD) organised a workshop in October last year for 20 members of the network. The goal was to create a culture of writing among members and to provide them with simple writing skills that will help them articulate and document their field experiences in publishable articles. The workshop was facilitated by resource persons from the school of Communication Studies of the University of Ghana.
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11 - 12written by Uwe KievelitzMarkets and fairs are extraordinarily good media for information exchange and transfer of innovations. With this idea, an international market of participatory learning approaches was held. Uwe Kievelitz of the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) reports on a stimulating event and gives some ideas for others planning something similar. Describes an international fair on participatory learning organised by GTZ. The event was seen as a success: everyone willing to share his or her experiences could find an audience. The article discusses organisational aspects, and fora for communication: the market itself, workshops, 'open spaces' and audiovisual shows. Hopefully, the public acclaim of the fair will lead to similar events, preferably in the South. (WB)
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13 - 14written by Coen ReijntjesIn 1990 the Tamil Nadu LEISA Network was founded. It is dedicated to development of sustainable, small-scale rainfed agriculture and its members are resource-poor farmers and small non-governmental organisations. ILEIA gives information support and in that context Coen Reijntjes visited the Network in November 1994. A travel report.
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15 - 15written by Stephen Connelly , Nikky WilsonDescribes the process of improving links between researchers and farmers, highlighting the role of service NGOs and the difficult issue of choosing farmer representatives to serve on research user commissions at national and regional levels. To promote farmers' own ideas and innovations a fund is available for users to contract research on topics of direct interest to them. First experiences with this partnership revealed the need to train researchers in communication techniques and to train both researchers and farmers in on-farm participatory research methods. (from PTD Circular No. 3)
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16 - 19written by Ed Ruddell , Julio BeingoleaContributors to the ILEIA Newsletter from many parts of the world presented evidence of farmers' own experimental efforts. Supporting such experimentation has been stressed as a key strategy in the development of sustainable agriculture. But how far should such support go? Should resource poor farmers learn scientific research methods? Describes how Andean farmers were involved in on-farm trials and their evaluation. Although the used method, analysis of variance, may be questionned as to its validity, the farmer-scientist interaction had a number of interesting effects on level of education, on farmers' confidence in testing out their own ideas and on community development as a whole. (WB)
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20 - 21written by Stephen Sherwood , Jeffery BentleyPreviously we learned that farmers knew much about insect pests, although they misunderstood certain key ideas like insect reproduction and predator-pest relations. We found that teaching missing information in a farmer-useful way enabled people to overcome knowledge barriers and improve their farming. On the basis of our experience with the insect course, we started a pilot effort to help farmers resolve plant disease problems. A report from Nicaragua.
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22 - 23written by Roberto UgasThrough the story of Isisdora from Lima this article shows how the indigenous knowledge on natural vegetation should be implemented in the farming (urban and rural) practices. It also shows the need for change in the education of new agronomists by increasing the collaboration at all levels (farmers, students, researchers, officials and local NGOs).
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24 - 25written by Narayan K SavantEfficient fertiliser management integrated with other appropriate agronomic and pest management practices is needed to improve and sustain productivity on millions of small paddy fields in Asia and Africa. Scientists of the International Fertilizer Development Center developed an Integrated Nutrient Management System to help increase and sustain rice productivity of small paddy fields in less-favourable rainfed areas. The method has the potential to increase yield levels up to 4,500 kg/ha with 40% less fertiliser use while protecting the environment.
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26 - 27written by Erik van der Werf , Albert BokkestijnDevelopment in Uganda mainly means: reconstruction. A long period of chaos, dictatorship and civil war ended in the late 1980s. Since then, all sorts of new initiatives have started, especially within the emerging sector of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In 1993, SNV (the Netherlands Development Organisation) and NOVIB (Netherlands Organisation for International Development Cooperation) convened a two day brainstorming workshop on environment and sustainable land use with their partner organisations in Uganda. One of the outcomes was a felt need for training on sustainable agriculture and participatory extension methods.
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28 - 28written by Harm de VriesHuevos de Amor or Love Eggs, are eggs produced by local chickens which are kept on free range. The chickens are kept together with a cock, and that is why the farmers call these eggs huevos de amor. What are the benefits of using hybrid layers as well as local hens? A report from Nicaragua.
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