Joshua J Ramisch

This chapter discusses the portrayal of “local knowledge” as it
interacts with and challenges the knowledge of outsiders, in this case researchers like me. I propose that the standard explanations of farmers’ “experiments” with new agricultural practices or varieties are limited fundamentally by a failure to
understand the ways in which agricultural practice is actually an embodied “performance” of farmers’ knowledge interacting with social and environmental contexts over time. Case studies from a development project’s experience of farmers’ experiments with cereal- legume rotations illustrate how farmers and researchers construct soil fertility management knowledge. By discussing the presentation and circulation of knowledge at the interface between “outsiders” (development
change agents or researchers) and members of “local” communities, this chapter contributes to the burgeoning literature on farmers’ “experiments” and whether it is useful to think of such experiments—or the “local knowledge” of rural people—as embodying “knowledge systems” distinct from (or analogous to) “scientific” knowledge. It also illustrates the complexities of “performing” and communicating knowledge at the interface between different development actors.

Many sub-Saharan Africa smallholder farmers have diversified beyond purely agricultural, rural livelihoods towards ones with household members exploiting opportunities in multiple locations. This paper explores the evolution and implications of multilocational livelihoods for western Kenyan households and out-migrants, using interviews and ethnographic data collected over a 12-year period. Findings suggest that the livelihood and food security vulnerabilities of both the rural and urban areas are strongly interlinked, supported in part by contemporary cellphone communication and money transfer technologies. Multilocationality results from and reinforces intergenerational and gendered tensions and is changing the ways that agroecological knowledge is created and shared.

Certain types of participation have gained legitimacy amongst agronomists in national and international research centres, e.g. “farmer field schools” and other group-based experimentation / demonstration approaches; participatory ranking exercises for variety appraisals; wealth ranking or other problem trees to identify constraints. This participation imperative means that on-farm research now necessarily engages twin (social and agronomic) objectives – “empowerment”, greater knowledge sharing, and improved social capital on the one hand, which are meant to foster improved crop husbandry on the other hand, visible as improved crop performance and yields, soil fertility, etc. However, it is not clear that the research products and data gained from these activities are effectively advancing either agronomy or farmers’ welfare.

Case study material from national and international agricultural research on soil fertility management in Kenya illustrates some of the challenges of implementing such participatory technology development. These challenges are related to the political, social dynamics of group-based learning, to the complexities of knowledge generation and sharing in a real, social context, and to the suspect validity and rigour of data generated in these hybrid ventures. Even projects that explicitly tried to subvert these problems were only moderately successful in implementing changes, and many examples show how difficult it was to generate useful (i.e. publishable) agronomic data or conclusions. Local actors ended up perceiving the researchers as “not very good farmers”, while research teams found farmers to be “not very good researchers”, obviously not the middle ground that these participatory approaches hope to achieve.

This study integrated local and scientific knowledge to assess the impacts of climate change and variability on food security in West Pokot County, Kenya from 1980–2012. It characterized rainfall and temperature from 1980–2011 and the phenology of agricultural vegetation, assessed land use and land cover (LULC) changes, and surveyed local knowledge and perceptions of the relationships between climate change and variability, land use decisions, and food (in)security. The 124 respondents were aware of long-term changes in their environment, with 68% strongly believing that climate has become more variable. The majority of the respondents (88%) reported declining rainfall and rising temperatures, with respondents in the lowland areas reporting shortened growing seasons that affected food production. Meteorological data for 1980–2011 confirmed high inter-annual rainfall variability around the mean value of 973.4 mm/yr but with no notable trend. Temperature data showed an increasing tren...

SUMMARYYield gaps have become a useful tool for guiding development-related agronomy, especially in the global South. While critics have challenged some aspects of the yield gap methodology, and the relevance of food security advocacy based on yield gaps, very few studies question the actual relevance, application and scalability of yield gaps for smallholder farmers (and researchers) in the tropics. We assess these limitations using two contrasting case studies: maize-based farming systems in Western Kenya and rice-based farming systems in Central Luzon, the Philippines. From these two cases, we propose improvements in the use of yield gaps that would acknowledge both the riskiness of crop improvement options and the role that yield increases might play within local livelihoods. Participatory research conducted in Western Kenya calls into question the actual use and up-scaling of yield measurements from on-station agronomic trials to derive estimates of actual and water-limited yie...

This chapter discusses the portrayal of “local knowledge” as it interacts with and challenges the knowledge of outsiders, in this case researchers like me. I propose that the standard explanations of farmers’ “experiments” with new agricultural practices or varieties are limited fundamentally by a failure to understand the ways in which agricultural practice is actually an embodied “performance” of farmers’ knowledge interacting with social and environmental contexts over time. Case studies from a development project’s experience of farmers’ experiments with cereal- legume rotations illustrate how farmers and researchers construct soil fertility management knowledge. By discussing the presentation and circulation of knowledge at the interface between “outsiders” (development change agents or researchers) and members of “local” communities, this chapter contributes to the burgeoning literature on farmers’ “experiments” and whether it is useful to think of such experiments—or the “loc...

Many sub-Saharan Africa smallholder farmers have diversified beyond purely agricultural, rural livelihoods towards ones with household members exploiting opportunities in multiple locations. This paper explores the evolution and implications of multilocational livelihoods for western Kenyan households and out-migrants, using interviews and ethnographic data collected over a 12-year period. Findings suggest that the livelihood and food security vulnerabilities of both the rural and urban areas are strongly interlinked, supported in part by contemporary cellphone communication and money transfer technologies. Multilocationality results from and reinforces intergenerational and gendered tensions and is changing the ways that agroecological knowledge is created and shared.

Knowledge-based development interventions for improved natural resource management have long advocated for the integration of local and outsiders' knowledge. Participatory and conventional approaches frame this as a dialogue between ''local'' and ''scientific'' knowledges, using the relative strengths of each stakeholder's experience to reinforce knowledge gaps. While the epistemological and methodological challenges of such dialogue are well-documented, this study uses a

This chapter explores the cultural dimensions of agricultural biodiversity conservation through a case study of the relationships between caste-based food traditions and local varieties of rice and finger millet managed by smallholder subsistence farmers in the Himalayan foothills of western Nepal. The empirical material for this study is derived from interviews with primary stakeholders, a household survey, and direct observation

... ABSTRACT The following study was conducted to determine smallholders' land use management practices and agricultural indicators of soil quality within farmers' fields in Chuka and Gachoka divisions in Kenya's Central Highlands. ... Division Significance Chuka Gachoka ...

The “Strengthening ‘Folk Ecology’ Project” studied and documented the dynamics of how local agro-ecological knowledge is bred and how it spreads spontaneously or through a planned scaling out process. The project’s predominance with farmer preferred hands-on and visible processes were essential in creating key knowledge, research findings and reaching as many farmers as possible. The project relied on (a) partnerships with institutions and the smallholder groups, beginning with few and ending with a movement of groups b) participatory learning plots – with a modified FFS-type approach c) community platforms such as field days d) written materials d) Fork Arts e.g. poems, drama and song. Innovative approaches were devised and applied, to be able to create dynamic knowledge and extend its use from the collective hands-on sites to as many farms as possible. Two key means were i) the Resource Farmer concept and ii) the farmer-led try-out model of continuous learning. These two relied on integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) – a key theme for TSBF-CIAT – as an entry point for community activities. These two key approaches evolved so fast, one, to involve other1 stakeholders and two, to include a broader scope than merely addressing “soil fertility”. Several studies have distinguished the aspects that were general in all sites, and those that were specific (and offered reasons). The studies show that the project has shaped new learning and learning activities especially local innovation and experimentation, dialogue and new partnerships between farmers and other partners besides TSBF-CIAT geared toward improving the functioning of the local agro-ecosystems. This strategy has strengthened local institutions, actors and processes, and leaves strong traceable changes for the average smallholder in the several sites (contained in the “Summary of Impacts” accompanying this report. Finally, we show how Project findings are useful for improving the communication strategies and decision-making abilities of extension, policymakers, and other research activities addressing agricultural livelihoods in western Kenya

Beyond the Biophysical argues for an interdisciplinary perspective on agriculture, natural resource management (NRM), and international development practice that extends beyond a purely biophysical orientation. Biophysical interventions succeed or fail not simply on ...

... that found north in the older, cotton-growing regions of Sikasso or Koutiala, but typical of the area south of Sikasso (Kébé, 1994 ... The results of these community discussions (Table 3) provided the basis for semi-structured interviews with the sample households through the year to ...

A study was conducted to determine farmers' perceptions of soil quality and soil management practices that influ-enced soil fertility within farmers' fields in Chuka and Gachoka divisions in central Kenya highlands. Soils were characterized by farmers after which they were geo-...

Since the mid-1980s, the largely agricultural landscape of subhumid southern Mali has also become the country's most important livestock-raising region. Cotton farmers have been investing in animals for plowing, weeding and drawing carts. Semi-sedentary Fulani have also moved south into the region with their herds, following Sahelian droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. A year-long village-based case study investigated which

It is recognised that smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa significantly depend on land for their livelihoods. Nevertheless, these livelihoods are constrained by inherent low soil fertility. Over a long time, researchers and farmers have battled to arrest soil fertility ...

Structural adjustments programs (SAPs) in the last two decades have eliminated all farm-support programs leading to low usage of fertilizers by Kenyan smallholders. One way of addressing this problem is use of organic nutrient resources. This paper examines their cost-effectiveness as capital investments in replenishment of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K) and soil organic matter (SOM) in smallholder, Maize-based

Summary A year-long study of an agro-pastoral community of southern Mali revealed three distinct farming systems associated with different ethnic sub-regions. Their varying reliance on livestock, inorganic fertilisers, and bush fallowing accounted for significantly different ...

Go to AGRIS search. Try it! Temps forts le CIAT in Afrique no. 32 (2006). Créer une expertise dynamique sur la gestion intégrée de la fertilité des sols dans l'ouest du Kenya [on line]. Ramisch, Joshua J. Publisher, Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Kampala, UG. ...

Go to AGRIS search. Try it! Highlights: CIAT in Africa no. 32 (2006). Building dynamic expertise for integrated soil fertility management in western Kenya [on line]. Ramisch, Joshua J. Publisher, Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Kampala, UG. ...