Coming:
Local heritage in the changing tropics
New Haven (USA), 10-12 February 1995.
At the Yale School of Forestry, the Student Chapter of the International Society of Tropical Foresters
will be hosting their fourth annual conference from 10 to 12 February 1995. The conference is
entitled 'Local heritage in the changing tropics: innovative strategies for natural resource management
and control'.
The goal of the conference will be to explore the strategies used by marginalized communities
throughout the tropics to assert customary rights over resource use and control in the current global
context.
The conference will address three major themes:
Indigenous knowledge for sustainable development
Cape Coast (Ghana), 13-15 March 1995.
GHARCIK is planning to organize a national symposium to review the current status of indigenous
knowledge in Ghana, to identify priority areas for research, and to establish a national network of
indigenous knowledge by identifying relevant individuals and institutions.
Topics will deal with indigenous knowledge in the fields of ethno-veterinary and animal health,
animal nutrition and production, traditional farming systems, traditional medicine, management of
environment and natural resources, local organization, child health and care, development of non-
agricultural technologies, architecture, the development of education, the merits and demerits of
ethno-customary laws, and diet and food preparation.
For more information please contact:
Dr Mensah Bonsu, Ghana Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge (GHARCIK), School of
Agriculture, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana. Tel: +233-42-2240-9/2480-9. Telex:
+233-42-2552 UCC GH
Nitrogen-fixing trees for fodder
Pune (India), 20-25 March 1995.
The scarcity of fodder is a major constraint faced by farming communities in the tropics. It results
from the degradation of such traditional fodder sources as forests and village common land. Farmers
are thus required to produce at least some fodder on their own farms. But these farms are usually
small, and farmers cannot afford to set aside land exclusively for this purpose. Adding fodder trees
along fields where crops are grown is an attractive option that produces fodder as well as food on the
same land. Nitrogen-fixing trees (NFTs) offer good potential in such agroforestry systems.
The Nitrogen-Fixing Tree Association is holding an international workshop entitled 'Nitrogen-fixing
trees for fodder'. It will bring together researchers and practitioners who will exchange information
and develop strategies for the increased use of NFTs in fodder production systems.
The specific objectives of the workshop are:
Indigenous knowledge and sustainable development
Beijing (China), October 1995.
The Centre for Integrated Agricultural Development (CIAD) of Beijing Agricultural University is
planning to hold a seven-day international conference entitled 'Indigenous knowledge and sustainable
development' in October 1995 in Beijing. Indigenous knowledge in the following areas will be
included:
13th International Plant Protection Congress
The Hague (The Netherlands), 2-7 July 1995
The 13th International Plant Protection Congress will be held in The Netherlands in July 1995. The
main theme is 'sustainable crop protection for the benefit of all'. The topics of presentations and
poster sessions will include:
Past:
Indigenous knowledge systems and rural development in China
Beijing (China), 18-29 April 1994.
A workshop entitled 'Indigenous knowledge systems and rural development in China' was held in
Beijing on 18-29 April 1994. It was conducted by the Centre for Integrated Agricultural Development
(CIAD) of Beijing Agricultural University, and by GTZ of Germany.
Presentations and discussion focused on such topics as the history of Chinese agriculture, case studies
in traditional Chinese veterinary medicine, community forests in China, Andean agriculture and
technology in Peru, and indigenous knowledge and sustainable development. A PRA for obtaining
indigenous agricultural knowledge was tried out during the workshop in a remote mountain area of
Beijing Municipality.
On April 29, a group of workshop participants from various institutions was invited by the organizers
to see and discuss the results of the whole workshop process, including the field trip. The group
assessed the role of indigenous knowledge for sustainable agricultural and rural development in China
and suggested further studies in this field.
Plans for follow-up activities in China were discussed at the workshop. A team concerned with
gathering the knowledge of rural people has already been established within CIAD, and an
international conference is scheduled.
CIAD has published the workshop proceedings; copies can be obtained from the address below for US$10 each. Another publication entitled 'Integrated
resource management for sustainable agricultural development' is also available for US$60.
Please contact:
Mr Zhong Bingfang and Mr Chen Ye, CIAD, Beijing Agricultural
University, Beijing 100094, China. Tel: +86-1-2582337. Fax: +86-1-2582332. Bank Account No.:
14824-1276, Beijing Branch, Bank of China. Att. CIAD, Beijing Agricultural University.
Training of technical personnel for projects of rural development that are aimed at
indigenous women
Puebla (Mexico), 16-29 October 1994.
A workshop with this title was held at CEICADAR in the city of Puebla (Mexico). It was part of the
Training Program in Rural Development for Women Leaders. Representatives of Mexican
organizations concerned with rural development and indigenous women took part in the workshop.
The Comité International de Liaison du Corps pour l'Alimentation (CILCA) and the
Postgraduates College were directly responsible for conducting the workshop. It was supported
financially by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) of the Program of the
Nations United for Development (PNUD).
The principal objective of the workshop was to improve the theoretical and practical knowledge of the
technical personnel who work in development programmes involving rural and indigenous women.
Such programmes are aimed at supporting processes of building leadership capacity in rural areas,
and at promoting organizational processes that serve the strategic and practical interests of
women.
The topics treated in the workshop were the following.
Module I: Rural women and development:
13th international symposium: Systems-oriented research in agriculture and rural
development
Montpellier (France), 21-25 November 1994.
This international symposium, organized by the Association for Farming Systems Research and
Extension (ASFRE) and sponsored by AFSRE, CIHEAM/IAMM, CIRAD, CNEARC, GRET, INRA,
and ORSTOM, brought together more than 700 participants from over 50 countries, who together
represented a wide range of scientific and social disciplines and backgrounds (universities, field
projects, non-government and farmer organizations, experimental stations, state agencies and the
private sector).
One of the central objectives was to share, compare and contrast francophone and anglophone FSRE
traditions and experience. The 'socially constructed systems knowledge' of the two language groups
would appear to diverge in one key respect, with anglophone practitioners further along the science-
practice continuum than many of their francophone colleagues.
This was dramatized in the Tools and Training Bazaar, for example, by Mike Foale (APSRU,
Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia), who displayed a working model of a soil corer which is cheap,
easy to make on-farm, and easy to use. The corer enables farmers to control and enhance their own
'land literacy', by 'reading' soil moisture and composition at depths deeper than is possible with
conventional commercial soil tests. The results of APSRU's simulation modelling of soil moisture and
cropping opportunities in the uncertain rainfall conditions of central Queensland further complement
farmers' management knowledge.
Comparisons and contrasts between scientists' and farmers' information, knowledge and interpretation
were deepened by presentations by Professor Teruo Wada, and the scientist-farmer team of Satoru
Sato and Shin-ichi Hiyama (aided by J.S. Caldwell). They introduced the concepts and metaphors of
farmer-led Muraokoshi (rural revitalization) and the 'circle of harmony'. Despite the
language difficulties, participants were intrigued, stimulated, and charmed by our Japanese colleagues
subtle nuancing of indigenous knowledge and its role in purposive agricultural development.
A lively poster presented by the team of the Zanzibar cash-crop farming systems project, led by Dr
Amina Mohammed (asst. director of research, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Natural
Resources), was one of many which demonstrated the importance of the involvement of 'stakeholders'
in the production-marketing chain (women as well as men) in focusing the experimental programme,
interpreting the results, and disseminating relevant information from both scientists and
farmers/marketers through gender-specific communication networks. The theoretical analysis of
contrasting domains of information, knowledge, and interpretation was taken up in Workshop 4 on
indigenous knowledge. For example, what exactly is signified when PRA enthusiasts encourage
villagers to diagram, map or model their watershed? At what point is it desirable to explicate the
knowledge indigenous to one system in the terms and metaphors of another? In what sense do
scientists need to 'validate' farmers' knowledge and, conversely, to what degree do farmers perceive
on-farm experiments as a validation of scientists' knowledge?
The symposium raised plenty of challenges for the next international AFSRE symposia, to be held in
Asia in 1996, and in Africa in 1998!
The proceedings will be published in 1995. In addition, Agricultural Systems and the
Journal of Farming Systems Research and Extension will be publishing issues based
on the Symposium, also in 1995. The AFSRE will be co-publishing two thematic monographs based
on Workshops 2 (agro-ecosystems) and 7 (policy). Together these documents form an unparallelled
record of collaborative achievement, experimentation, and innovation. (Janice
Jiggins)
Contact: The Secretariat, BP 5035, 34032 Montpellier, cedex 01, France. Fax: +33-
67-617186