Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
which we come to believe and value based on the meaningfully organized accumu-
lation of information (messages) through experience, communication, or inference.
Technological solutions often offer short-time benefits and undermine sustain-
ability. Technological solutions (e.g., terraces, mulching, and fertilizers) to land deg-
radation at the field scale are well understood. Barrow (1991) claims that despite
decades of humans talking of an impending environmental crisis, including the
breaking point of soils' fertility, threats to the environment have continued to grow
faster than the willingness to control them. Even with good intentions and best farm-
ing practices, soils are still vulnerable to cyclic drought or floods, which exacerbate
soil degradation. Arguably, development interventions have failed to induce people
to meaningfully participate and realize impacts from science-driven development
because of a lack of tools and mechanisms to facilitate them to use their own knowl-
edge accumulated over generations of using the land. Western science and education
is compartmentalized, contextualized, and taught in detached settings (e.g., class-
room, laboratory). Indigenous people acquire knowledge through direct exposure
to the real world. Particulars are understood in relation to whole; laws are tested
continually in the context of everyday survival. Scientists gain knowledge through
the scientific method. In this method, scientists start by finding a problem, which
generates questions. A scientist then picks a question of interest and, based on previ-
ous knowledge, develops a hypothesis. The scientist then designs a controlled experi-
ment, which will allow for testing the hypothesis against the real world. Then one
makes predictions about the outcome of the test, based on the hypotheses.
5.3 RESILIENCE APPROACH TO SOIL MANAGEMENT
Soil degradation in the tropics is most often caused by neglect, misuse, and mis-
management, and once the degradative processes are set in motion, they are exac-
erbated by unfavorable socioeconomic and political factors (Lal 2000). It is in
the interest of humans to sustain soils as this is the essence of human existence.
Resilience has become a central concept in the management of natural ecosys-
tems and is closely linked to vulnerability (Schoon 2005). In the context of natural
disaster studies, Blaikie et al. (1994) define vulnerability as a limited capacity to
“anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from the impact of natural hazard.” The
concept of soil resilience is useful in understanding the stability, recovery, and
transformation of when and why people would innovate to prevent land degrada-
tion. There is general consensus about a strong link between resilience, vulner-
ability, and sustainability; therefore, assessing changes in resilience as a result
of management action is critical because successfully increasing the resilience of
natural systems may, therefore, have important implications for human welfare
in the face of global climate change (Hughes 2003). Vulnerability to a hazard
can be defined as an act of resistance or lack of resistance to external stresses,
as a state of absence of resistance, and as a nature of limited inherent capacity.
Blaikie et al. (1994) defines vulnerability as a nature of limited capacity to “antici-
pate, cope with, resist, and recover from the impact of a natural hazard.” Others
have described vulnerability as the inverse of development model or system sus-
tainability. The root causes of vulnerability and risk are fundamentally tied to
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