Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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Methodological approaches to the topic
Edwin A. Gyasi
Agrodiversity defined
Through case studies in West Africa (principally Ghana; Maps A and B) and
drawing from nearly 10 years of research experience of the United Nations
University project on People, Land Management, and Environmental Change
(UNU/ PLEC), this topic demonstrates the importance of traditional, indigenous,
or local farmer knowledge and practices in sustainable conservation of biodiver-
sity and related natural resources by agrodiversity.
Agrodiversity refers to the processes and products of agricultural diversifi-
cation. In more elaborate terms, it is “the many ways in which farmers use the
natural diversity of the environment for production, including not only their
choice of crops but also their management of land, water and biota as a whole”
(Brookfield and Padoch, 1994: 9). It comprises four principal elements,
namely:
•
management diversity, which refers to the various methods of managing the
land and associated biophysical resources for agricultural purposes
•
agrobiodiversity, which describes the “management and direct use of biolog-
ical species, including all crops, semi-domesticates and wild species” (Huijun,
Zhiling, and Brookfield, 1996: 15)
•
biophysical diversity, which refers to the various soil characteristics and their
productivity, and the biodiversity of natural (or spontaneous) plant life and the
soil biota
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