Indigenous Agricultural Practices Research Articles

Endogenous Forest Development Paradigm: Challenging Current Forest Conservation Practices in Ghana

The centre of Ghana development is land that plays a vital role. This article focused mainly on the rapid land degradation and deforestation due to bush fires, poorly managed grazing, farming and agricultural conversion, current forest/woodland governance systems and major policy gaps that were identified. A combination of methods used included: Extensive study of secondary literature/reports/programmes/write-ups (from 1999-2004), key informant interview: a one-on-one interview with Government Officials, 7 responsible for forest management, Forestry, Commission and Traditional Institutions (men-10, women-5), elders-6, and functionaries-4 living in the community, phased assertion. The study recommend Forest Management System needs to be evolved that includes the management and development of sacred groves, shrines, sacred bodies and natures, and totems; associated with indigenous agricultural practices and seeds, indigenous agro-ecological management practices, indigenous tree and vegetation management practices, indigenous livelihood developments and human activity systems which are both enhancing and militating against biodiversity conservation and development encourage and systematically develop traditionally protect areas/plants/animals (TPAs). Attention should be paid to conservation of: 1) sacred groves; 2) burial grounds and spiritual lands; 3) sacred water bodies and fauna; 4) totemic animals; 5) traditional cultural practices; 6) farming systems; 7) traditional crop varieties; 8) home gardens; 9) graze-lands and rest lands; 10) wild fruits supply systems.

Indigenous technologies of organic agriculture: A review

Agro-chemicals based farming is not sustainable in consonance with economics, ecology, equity, energy and socio-cultural dimensions. Indigenous agricultural practices, which are based on natural and organic methods of farming offer several effective, feasible and cost effective solutions to most of the basic problems being faced in conventional farming system. though agricultural production has continued to increase, but productivity rate per unit area has started to decline. The entire agricultural community is trying to find out an alternative sustainable farming system, which is ecologically sound, economically and socially acceptable. Huge quantity of crop residues/animal wastes is available on a farm. the common practice is to burn it which creates environmental pollution and loss of nutrients. Proper recycling can produce excellent quality compost in 3–4 months, depending upon the climatic conditions and method of composting. organic farming systems viz; Natural farming, Biodynamic farming, Rishi Krishi, Panchagavya Krishi, Permaculture, Homa Farming etc. are popular and being practiced by a large number of farmers in India and the abroad.

Indigenous Agricultural Practices followed for Paddy Cultivation in Ariyalur District of Tamil Nadu

Paddy is the major crop in Ariyalur District of TamilNadu as it occupies an area of 24, 143 ha. Indigenous Agricultural Practices (IAPs) are the accumulated skill of the particular community and are unique and in harmony with the nature. An attempt was made to explore the IAPs adopted in paddy cultivation in two blocks viz., Thirumanur and T. Palur through Rapid Rural Appraisal, Personal interviews and also to work out the grand adoption percentage of IAPs in paddy cultivation. Data were collected from 120 respondents belonging to eight villages using proportionate random sampling method. The study revealed that there were 38 IAPs categorized under six cultivation practices and the highest adoption percentage was arrived for hand weeding (100%), trimming of field bunds (100%), summer ploughing (87%), sheep penning (85%) and shaking of seedling before transplanting (83%). The Grand Adoption percentage of IAPs in paddy at Ariyalur district was only 35 per cent and there is an ample scope to promote IAPs as a measure of sustainable agriculture by merging with other practices aiming at higher yield and income without harming environment.

Rationality of Documented Indigenous Technical Knowledge on Coconut Cultivation in Coastal Farming System of Tamil Nadu

The study was conducted in all the twelve coastal districts of Tamil Nadu with 240 farmers as respondents. The selection of farm respondents was on the basis of their awareness and adoption of indigenous technologies in agriculture, based on personal interview method. The association of farmers with the development agencies working in the study area was also considered as a criterion for the selection. Twenty farmers representing each block of twelve districts in Tamil Nadu with a total of 240 respondents have been identified and assisted in the collection of information on indigenous agricultural practices. On consultation with an expert committee of extension scientists, the identified items were sent to 60 scientist of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University for testing the rationality. The findings of this study revealed that out of 14 indigenous technologies on coconut cultivation, one was found to be irrational. The rational items had higher awareness and adoption. The identified practices being rooted in the rural culture of Tamil Nadu could be easily disseminated through extension system, which may assist in developing ecofriendly agricultural practices and creation of new farming systems for the benefit of resource poor farmers in coastal areas of Tamil Nadu.

Relative Importance of Farmers' Characteristics in Predicting their Knowledge about Indigenous Agricultural Practices

This study was conducted to identify the farmers’ characteristics that act as factors in influencing their knowledge on indigenous agricultural practices. The study was conducted in the state of Kerala among 40 farmers each of ten selected horticultural crops. Step wise regression analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were employed to identify the influencing factors. The study revealed that age, farm power status, innovativeness, rational orientation, communication status, and social participation status positively influence knowledge of farmers on indigenous agricultural practices whereas material status, educational status, and family status were the important characteristics of farmers negatively influencing the knowledge of indigenous practices.

Privileged Biofuels, Marginalized Indigenous Peoples

Biofuels development has assumed an important role in integrating Indigenous peoples and other marginalized populations in the production of biofuels for global consumption. By combining the theories of commoditization and the environmental sociology of networks and flows, the author analyzed emerging trends and possible changes in institutions and behaviors brought about by the introduction of biofuels as a development option on ancestral lands. Using the Indonesian oil palm and the Philippine Jatropha experiences, the author argues that although there are efforts to integrate smallholder systems to the global integrated biofuels network, the effects of commoditization continue to undermine the more sustainable, less commoditized agricultural practices of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples and their traditional agricultural practices are at risk of being either phased out from or eventually transformed by the global integrated biofuels network to accommodate large-scale, consolidated biofuel plantation systems. However, there are also indications that persistent criticisms of and enduring reforms in the global integrated biofuels network challenge the future of highly commoditized biofuels. This suggests that the coevolutionary trajectory of both highly commoditized biofuels and noncommoditized Indigenous agricultural practices remains uncertain.

Interdisciplinary perspectives on historical ecology and environmental policy in Papua New Guinea

SUMMARYPapua New Guinea (PNG) has been the site of a great deal of scientific work, and a fair amount of interdisciplinary debate, within the broad field of historical ecology, which encompasses the study of indigenous society-environment relationships over different time periods. However, this in itself provides no guarantee that scientists engaged in such debate will have a greater influence on the formulation of environmental conservation policies in a state where indigenous decision makers now hold the levers of political power. Five environmental policy paradigms which have emerged in the course of public debate about environmental conservation in PNG over the past half century; the wildlife management, environmental planning, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem assessment, and carbon sequestration paradigms. Each paradigm has framed a distinctive form of interdisciplinary debate about indigenous society-environment relationships within a contemporary political framework. However, a further connection can be drawn between the role of interdisciplinary debate in an evolving national policy framework and the history of scientific debate about the nature of indigenous society-environment relationships in the pre-colonial era. This connection places a distinctive emphasis on the relationship between indigenous agricultural practices and management of the national forest estate for reasons which are themselves a contingent effect of the nature of European colonial intervention over the course of the last century and a half. This particular bias in the relationship between historical ecology and environmental policy has lasted down to the present day. PNG's environmental policy problems are unlikely to have any rational or sensible solution in the absence of a better scientific understanding of the complexity of indigenous society-environment relationships. Scientists need to understand the complexity of the environmental policy process as a historical process in its own right in order to work out which policy problems offer both the scope and the incentive to sustain specific forms of interdisciplinary debate that are likely to produce better policy outcomes.

Indigenous Agricultural Practices among Mavilan Tribe in North Kerala

Mavilan, a north Kerala tribe inhabits the hilly areas of Kannur and Kasaragod districts. Traditionally, they were hunters, gatherers and shifting cultivators. They have rich knowledge in various kinds of paddy and they categorized it according to the peculiarity of seeds. The kumeri cultivation, crop diversity, plant protection measures, harvest and storing come under the agricultural practices of Mavilan community. In the present day, their agricultural practices have changed a lot. It is due to the regulation of forest rules, changing land use pattern and intrusion of their land by the non-tribal communities.

Re‐encountering resistance: Plantation activism and smallholder production in Thailand and Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract: The emergence of social and environmental movements against plantation forestry in Southeast Asia positions rural development against local displacement and environmental degradation. Multi‐scaled NGO networks have been active in promoting the notion that rural people in Southeast Asia uniformly oppose plantation development. There are potential pitfalls in this heightened attention to resistance however, as it has often lapsed into essentialist notions of timeless indigenous agricultural practices, and unproblematic local allegiances to common property and conservation. An exclusive emphasis on resistance also offers little understanding of widespread smallholder participation in plantation production across the region. A useful method of approaching the complexity of local responses to plantation development is through the history of legal and informal resource tenure, within an analysis of rural political‐economic restructuring. Drawing on research in Thailand and Sarawak, I suggest that a more nuanced appreciation of both the structural constraints and deployments of agency which characterise the enrolment of rural people into plantation commodity networks, opens up new spaces for analysis and political action, which supports a geographically embedded view of relations of power, rural livelihoods and environmental politics.

"Bribing the Land": An Appraisal of the Farming Systems of the Maccaa Oromo in Wallagga

“Bribing the Land”:An Appraisal of the Farming Systems of the Maccaa Oromo in Wallagga Tesema Ta’a Introduction Sustainable agriculture is one of the major themes that gained currency in the 1980s, together with macroeconomic reform, food security, and income generation, in response to the financial and ecological problems that imported, high-input modern agricultural practices, such as improved varieties of selected seeds, chemical fertilizers, and weed killers, have engendered. In developing countries, the emphasis on sustainability evolved from a reassessment of the role of indigenous systems of knowledge and practices in sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, and natural resources management, which, on a small scale, often proved to be more sustainable than some imported systems.1 Later, the concept of sustainable agriculture became integrated into the new strategy of Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) and gradually replaced the previous approach, Farming Systems Research (FSR).2 Scholars, particularly agricultural economists, have defined sustainability in various ways. According to Vernon W. Ruttan (1988), "Any definition of sustainability which is appropriate to be used as a guide to agricultural practice should at least recognize the need for enhancement of productivity to meet the increased demands created by a growing population and rising income."3 In this article, sustainability refers to the capacity of a given farming society to survive over a longer period of time—from generation to generation in an area or region, resisting [End Page 97] shocks, strains, and stresses that are natural or man-made—and to be able to feed its growing population in an economically viable and socially acceptable human-oriented manner. An attempt will be made to assess the extent to which the indigenous Oromo farming system in Wallagga complies with such a strategy. Over the course of several centuries, the Maccaa Oromo of Wallagga in Western Ethiopia have developed a highly diverse and complex qotiisa (farming system), using indigenous agricultural knowledge and practices. Through the application of their agricultural knowledge and practices, the Maccaa Oromo have been able to obtain surplus harvests and maintain harmonious and balanced relationships between crop cultivation, livestock raising, plant life, and the environment. Their farming systems and practices have also provided a certain degree of continuity and sustainability during periodic disruptions due to climatic variations and political upheavals. This article attempts to shed light on several aspects of the Maccaa Oromo farming system and their implications for sustainable development.4 An Overview of the Agricultural History of the Oromo At present, the study of agriculture and the environment in Oromia is in its infancy. Written accounts of almost all aspects of Oromo history and culture are not only scarce but sometimes fragmented, misrepresented, and misinterpreted.5 In Ethiopian studies, there seems to be a lack of emphasis on farming systems and a dearth of adequate scientific documentation, especially on the agricultural history and indigenous agricultural systems of the Oromo. The available oral and written sources indicate that the cradle land of the Oromo, the largest ethnonation in northeast Africa with a distinct culture and language, Afaan Oromoo, is located in present day south-central Ethiopia.6 Before the sixteenth century, which was marked by major population movements in Ethiopia and the Horn, the region is reputed to have been extremely fertile, suitable for grain cultivation and animal husbandry and sustaining a highly diverse flora and fauna. It had sufficient rainfall and enough water for people and their cattle. There was plenty of pasture for the numerous herds and flocks of the Oromo. [End Page 98] Over time, however, the population of both people and domestic animals increased and the Oromo were forced to extend their habitat, as well as their agricultural and grazing lands. Written as well as oral evidence indicates that there was significant human and animal growth among the Oromo during the sixteenth century. It was at this time that the Gadaa institution, the socioeconomic and political system of the Oromo, reached its full maturity, leading to what may be referred to as an "Oromo Renaissance."7 In addition, external pressures, such as the continuous expansion of the Abyssinian Christian kingdom from the north, and internal demographic and ecological changes triggered the famed sixteenth-century "Oromo...

Basutoland: A Historical Journey into the Environment.

Abstract Reconstructing the environment of Lesotho in order to assess soil erosion at different time scales, highlights conflicting views about the initiation of accelerated erosion. Indigenous agricultural practices were sensitive to the fragile environment and aimed to ensure a protective vegetative cover. The imposition of colonial conservation techniques overlooked local wisdom regarding soil erosion prevention, was often ineffective, and arguably accelerated soil erosion. Loss of flat fertile land to the Boers, changes from indigenous agriculture to commercial cultivation, concentration of population on steep slopes, were among causes that contributed to accelerated erosion, and to indigenous agricultural systems becoming less effective.

Planners or performers? Reflections on indigenous dryland farming in northern Burkina Faso

Indigenous agricultural practices in semiarid West Africa must be seen as dynamic operations that serve different ends. These ends are not only agricultural, but symbolic. By highlighting how farmers in the Central Plateau region of Burkina Faso organize their farming strategies, the “agriculture as performance” arguments developed by Richards (1987, 1993) can be both challenged and extended from the humid forest zone of West Africa. Farmers, it can be argued, are also keen “planners;” in order to meet their goals they invest considerable effort in overcoming ecological constraints, and also spend time forging links with various institutions working for agricultural development. Technologies and ideas from multiple sources—including those from some innovative development institutions — are incorporated in agricultural planning and practices in different ways, by different farmers, and for different reasons. The prospect of locally initiated and managed agricultural change emerging on the Central Plateau will be dependent upon this dialogue between farmer innovation, local organizations, and development projects.

Indigenous agricultural knowledge systems, human interests, and critical analysis: Reflections on farmer organization in Ecuador

Indigenous agricultural knowledge (IAK) can be analyzed for its technical role in food production strategies, and for its role as cultural knowledge producing and reproducing mutual understanding and identity among the members of a farming group. IAK can also be approached from the perspective of critical theory, analyzing the relationship between knowledge and relations of power, with the goal of liberating indigenous farmers from forms of domination. The paper considers relationships between the different aspects of IAK, using examples of the influence of non-local technologies and ideas on indigenous agricultural practices in the Ecuadorian Andes. The examples elucidate how technical change is a signifier of the changing relationship between indigenous farmers and wider society. The political implications of these changes are ambiguous, however, because the change is not necessarily one of social and cultural assimilation. As indigenous peasant organizations in Ecuador now reflect on these changes, they are connecting the questions of IAK, indigenous cultural identity and political strategy. Some organizations speak of recovering and revalorizing indigenous technologies as a tool for, and symbol of, resistance to domination by wider society. Others see selective modernization of indigenous agriculture as a necessary strategy to sustain the social and cultural cohesion of the group, even if this implies social changes. The different perspectives reflect both different conditions facing the organizations, and their varying approaches. That peasant organizations have these discussions suggests that they should constitute an important meeting point for farmers and crop researchers to discuss technology development strategies as equal partners. The organizations can provide an institutional forum in which participants reflect critically on the agrarian knowledge that they have, why they have it, and what it can contribute to future strategies of agrarian and social change.

Tools for indigenous agricultural development in Latin America: An anthropologist's perspective

The project of indigenous agricultural development is now widely perceived as valid, given the technological limitations of and the social problems exacerbated by the Green Revolution. Different authors have presented critiques of the Green Revolution based upon their studies of indigenous agricultural practices and their attendant knowledge systems. Such analyses provide important foundations for the promotion of indigenous agricultural development, but do not adequately address the socio-historical dimension. In Latin America, promoting such development must rely upon the reassessment of indigenous culture and ethnic survival by the scientific community.

Migration in West Africa: a savanna village prespective

AbstractLocal migration in response to population pressure is part of the history of northeast Ghana. First by physical coercion, then by economic coercion, colonialism drastically changed the pattern of migration to one of long-distance movement from north-east Ghana and the northern savannas in general to southern Ghana. Migration in turn affected social organisation, agriculture and population dynamics n i savanna communities. While colonial policy was not always consistent, one dominant and ultimately effective strategy seems evident: to break up locally self-sufficient economies and societies in order to stimulate the temporary migration of labour from largely subsistence agriculture to work in commercial agriculture, mining and public works in the south. These sectors were directly tied to the European economy for the benefit of Britain. Low wages and poor working conditions encouraged most migrants to return to their savanna villages when they were sick, injured or too old to work.When Ghana gained its political independence from Britain this new pattern of migration had become firmly established and was maintained by changes in the social, economic and transport systems. Data from Zorse and the Upper Region show that migration at any one time takes about 50 per cent of working-age males and 15 per cent of working-age females to southern Ghana for periods of a year or more. Significantly increased dependency ratios mean that as a result of this migration each four remaining working-age adults must support themselves plus four dependants, instead of supporting only three dependants, as would be the case without migration. Since remittances by Zorse migrants are equal to only a small fraction of the value of their lost productive labour, the net effect of migration on the food consumption level of those remaining in the village will be determined by the balance between the increased output required of each remaining working-age adult and the decreased yield required of the total area of arable land. While I do not have all the quantitative data needed to resolve this question, statements by Zorse residents, evidence of chronic undernutrition, a long-term decrease in land productivity due to erosion and lack of organic matter, and serious labour shortages during periods of critical farm activity, suggest that the net effect of migration on Zorse is negative. That is, neither labour productivity nor land productivity is likely to compensate for the higher dependency ratio.While it may be true that migrants vote with their feet, the choice of paths is often determined by forces in the larger system beyond their control. The good news is that indigenous agricultural and demographic knowledge and practices in Africa may provide the starting point for a sustainable future if the patterns established by colonialism and reinforced by ‘modern’ economic development can be changed.