Farming Knowledge And Development

A single seed is more than just the promise of a plant. In rural south India, seeds represent diverging paths toward a sustainable livelihood. Development programs and global agribusiness promote genetically modified seeds and organic certification as a path toward more sustainable cotton production, but these solutions mask a complex web of economic, social, political, and ecological issues that may have consequences as dire as death. In Cultivating Knowledge anthropologist Andrew Flachs shows how rural farmers come to plant genetically modified or certified organic cotton, sometimes during moments of agrarian crisis. Interweaving ethnographic detail, discussions of ecological knowledge, and deep history, Flachs uncovers the unintended consequences of new technologies, which offer great benefits to some—but at others’ expense. Flachs shows that farmers do not make simple cost-benefit analyses when evaluating new technologies and options. Their evaluation of development is a complex and shifting calculation of social meaning, performance, economics, and personal aspiration. Only by understanding this complicated nexus can we begin to understand sustainable agriculture. By comparing the experiences of farmers engaged with these mutually exclusive visions for the future of agriculture, Cultivating Knowledge investigates the human responses to global agrarian change. It illuminates the local impact of global changes: the slow, persistent dangers of pesticides, inequalities in rural life, the aspirations of people who grow fibers sent around the world, the place of ecological knowledge in modern agriculture, and even the complex threat of suicide. It all begins with a seed.

Les savoirs paysans font l'objet de très nombreuses études. Ils sont devenus des objets de recherche. Mais ils n'ont pas été, pour autant, pris en compte dans la plupart des projets de développement. Près d'un quart de siècle d'opérations de développement, conduites sur tous les continents avec des succès divers, rend urgent d'établir enfin la jonction entre la recherche et le développement. C'est à cette tâche nécessaire que ce livre veut contribuer. Cette entreprise est placée sous le signe de la diversité. Vingt-trois chapitres présentent les résultats de recherches menées dans douze pays par des scientifiques de dix traditions universitaires différentes. Toutes les disciplines des sciences sociales sont présentes mais aussi l'agronomie, la nutrition, la recherche-développement et la communication. Les sociétés paysannes, changent, se transforment, innovent. Et cela à un rythme qui n'est pas forcément aussi lent que l'on a bien voulu le dire. Aussi il est fallacieux d'imputer la responsabilité des échecs des opérations de développement à la " résistance " des paysans au changement ou à " la mentalité paysanne ". Le problème, pour les paysans, est de maîtriser les techniques qui leur sont proposées et de se les approprier. Les textes réunis ici témoignent de la capacité des sociétés paysannes à s'adapter à de nouvelles contraintes. Le rôle du chercheur est d'identifier cette capacité, de trouver les moyens de la stimuler, de l'intégrer au système de développement et de l'utiliser, éventuellement, à la place de la recherche officielle. Ce programme et ce rôle assigné au chercheur impliquent une redistribution des cartes entre la Recherche et le Développement.

Subsistence production: a sign of market failure. Commercialization cannot be left to the market. Household effects of commercialization. Nutrition effects of commercialization. Policy action needed.

The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. 'World Development Report 2008' seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture? Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa? How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction? How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas? How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained? This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has been publishing the 'World Development Report'.

Low external-input technology (or LEIT) is an increasingly prominent subject in discussions of sustainable agriculture. There are growing calls for self-sufficient agriculture in an era experiencing diminishing returns from reliance upon expensive synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. There are many reasons to support strategies for low external input farming, including a concern for environmental sustainability, increased attention to resource-poor farmers and marginal environments, and the conviction that a better use of local resources in small-scale agriculture can improve farm productivity and innovation. But despite the increased attention to self-sufficient agriculture, there is little evidence available on the performance and impact of LEIT.This book examines the contributions and limitations of low external input technology for addressing the needs of resource-poor farmers. For the first time a balanced analysis of LEIT is provided, offering in-depth case studies, an analysis of the debates, an extensive review of the literature and practical suggestions about the management and integration of low external input agriculture in rural development programmes.

Intended for aspiring and new practitioners of Participatory Research and Development (PR&D) as well as field-based researchers in developing countries. Highlights that agricultural research and development has become a joint approach to deal with diverse biophysical environments, multiple livelihood goals, rapid changes in local and global economies, and an expanded range for stakeholders over agriculture and natural resources.

This 1999 book proposes an alternative approach to research and development, based on the needs of the farming community.

A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.