Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
TK is a strategic asset that is used by communities as an investment to strengthen
resilience against external forces (Adepide et al. 2004). Critchley and Mutunga
(2003) argue that indigenous environmental knowledge is essential to improved
management of resources (e.g., “green water” in drought-prone areas of the trop-
ics). The traditional and innovative technologies described comprise eight technol-
ogy groups: mulching, no-till farming, home garden systems, terraces, live barriers,
gully gardens, forms of riverbank protection, and waterborne manuring (Kirchmann
et al. 2007). The efforts to strengthen TK and integrated soil and water conservation
practices must be well informed. Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) also raise the
price of seeds and restrict access to seeds by farmers and scientists. Yet the chal-
lenges of climate change may require the widest possible circulation of germplasm to
enable effective and timely adaptation. TK for soil resilience embodies experiences,
practices, and insights utilized by local communities to minimize negative effects
resulting from external pressures to meet the increasing demands for food, feed,
fiber, and fuel. This knowledge is accumulated and refined purposively to sustain a
community and its culture for its continued survival. Depth of knowledge is rooted
in long inhabitation and use of places, lessons, and a more satisfying and sustain-
able complex knowledge system with adaptive integrity (Barnhardt and Kwagley
2005). Indigenous people are known to exhibit adaptive integrity, sustaining unique
perspectives, core values, beliefs, practices, and associated knowledge systems even
while going through changes beyond their control (Aoki 2003). However, with the
intervention of modern teaching and learning, the knowledge associated with the
symbiotic relationship between man and nature is slowly being eroded (Briggs 2005).
Regardless of the degree to which local people have embraced modernity, they
continue to prefer their own knowledge that covers spatial and temporal dimensions
deemed necessary for specific purposes. According to Warren (1991), people who
survive by tradition and folklore perceive change as risky and trust what has been
tried and tested by long-established custom. Many studies (Talawar 1996; Talawar
and Rhodes 1998; Teklu and Gezahegn 2003) provide evidence that farmers have
detailed knowledge of their soils in terms of physical, economic, and social envi-
ronment to meet their goals and exhibit the ability to translate this knowledge into
agronomic management options. Habarurema and Steiner (1997), in their studies
in southern Rwanda, reported farmers to have profound knowledge of their soils
to the extent that they classify soils according to their agricultural potential and
tillage properties into nine major soil types based on the following criteria: crop
productivity, soil depth, soil structure, and soil color corresponding to soil suitability
classes. In the Siaya District of Kenya, farmers base their classification on the top-
soil characteristics (color, depth, texture, and ease of workability) (Werner 2001). In
northern Ethiopia, three different soil types are distinguished by farmers on basis of
yields, topography, soil depth, color, texture, water holding capacity, and stoniness
(Corbeels et al. 2000). Yoruba farmers in Nigeria, in assessing the physical proper-
ties of soil (texture, color, drainage condition, organic matter, presence or absence
of earthworm casts, bulk density), focus on topsoil using their senses of sight, touch,
and smell (Osunade 1988). The Wasukuma people of northwest Tanzania, basing
on soil color, texture, and structure, recognize nine major soil classes and specific
management practices associated with each soil type (Rounce 1949; Malcolm 1953).
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