IK Monitor Research (8-3)

Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, November 2000

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Research, projects

Can farmers think like researchers? Experience gained while studying indigenous technological knowledge

by Neerchal Balakrishnaraj

The modern, educated classes worry about the depletion of natural resources but they normally place all the blame for this on rural people, who because they are not formally educated are assumed to be ignorant and without any concern for either the nation or nature. But is this really so? This is a key question which arises any time sustainable solutions are sought and indigenous and exogenous knowledge are being analyzed in terms of their possible relevance and compatibility in a given situation. Landscapes around the world are highly diverse, and technologies suitable for conserving biodiversity and maintaining ecological equilibrium in one place might not be suitable in another place under different local conditions. Input is needed from the local communities whose involvement is imperative for the sustainable management of common resources. But educated development workers question the value of this input. Can farmers and farm labourers understand the importance of technology? Can they assess new technologies using the same powers of reasoning and logic as researchers?

The answer I have found while studying indigenous technological knowledge in India is 'Yes!'. Just because farmers or farm labourers are illiterate - which, unfortunately, many of them are in India - does not mean that they do not have a cognitive, affective and conantive mind - a complete set of mental faculties for knowing, feeling and striving towards a goal.

I would like to share with Monitor readers some of the important lessons I learned while doing research in Karnataka, Bangalore, in connection with the Indo-Swiss Participative Watershed Development Project. I worked in four project districts: Bidar, Bijapur, Gulbarga and Koppal. (See reference below.)

The two examples I will present here both involve the construction of drainage canals known as 'nala' in the Kannada language. These are separated from the fields by dykes: reinforced, artifical embankments known in India as 'bunds'.

Example one
In Bidar, in the Sasthapur village of Basavakalyan taluk, I spoke with Shivappa Veerappa Patil and his son Gurunath Shivappa Patil, who had built a nala and bunds about 25 years ago. Following an acute drought some years ago, water from the nala began to leak through the bunds into their fields during the rainy season, when the drainage canals are full and the water is exerting great pressure on the bunds. Shivappa, who was in bed with fever when I talked with him, said that they had to do something to strengthen the bunds. 'Initially we had built the nala bunds some five meters wide and two meters high, using soil. But a monsoon wiped them out. Then, without raising the height, we doubled the width, pitched the banks at an angle, and reinforced the banks with boulders that are available locally. And we planted vegetation on the bunds: 'neem' (Azadirachta indica) and 'lakki' (Vitex negunda), for example. After that nothing bad ever happened to our nala bund again.' The pitching made the embankments strong enough to withstand greater forces, and this system has now been applied with success over a length of some 100 meters.

I asked Shivappa who had told them to pitch the nala banks at an angle. Had they had any external guidance? His immediate reply was, 'Who would give us guidance? We did it ourselves! When the bund of soil proved unable to withstand the force of the water, we thought of using boulders to maintain the banks at an angle. We tried it, and it worked!' Could there be a clearer example of farmers exhibiting the ability to reason and experiment like any researcher, or a clearer example of a sustainable technology for managing natural resources?

Example two
A nala flows alongside the road as you enter the Moga village of Chincholi taluk in the Gulbarga district. Over a length of about one kilometre, the reinforced banks are crumbling and giving way. This system was the product of a development agency operating 'officially' - 'officially' meaning that officials make all the decisions and villagers' involvement is limited to the hiring of a few masons. We asked the villagers about the disintegrating nala. They said that during the construction they had tried to offer advice but it was not accepted. Their warning that the banks would suffer during the rainy season went unheeded. They have been proven right, however.

'So what should have been done?' we asked the villagers. They said that the banks should have extended beneath the surface for a distance equal to the width of the nala bed. And the banks should also have been pitched at an angle. 'If a nala is wider at the top, the force of the water that flows in it is reduced. If the officials had done this, the nala would have held up,' the villagers said.

A lesson for policy-makers and development agencies
These examples show that village farmers do have technological ideas worth listening to, and they are capable of the same sort of logic and experimentation as modern researchers. This is seldom acknowledged, however. Many project documents, certainly in the field of watershed management, say how important it is that local farmers participate fully, but this seldom happens in practice. Rigid bureaucratic systems get in the way. Decision-makers at policy level have to do more to address the larger issue of popular participation, and officials at the grassroots level need to be trained in how to integrate indigenous technological knowledge (ITK) with exogenous technologies. It is imperative that these local-level officials change their attitude, something that could be possible if development agencies would change their role from 'executive' to 'facilitator'. NGOs could perhaps help to train the grassroots officials, but none of this will ever take place until policy is changed at the top.

Neerchal Balakrishnaraj
Founder Secretary of an NGO named Aranya Vikasa, House for Social and Environmental Research and Transformation, c/o T. Putta Naik, 5th Stage, 5th Cross, Veerannna Layout, Vinobha Nagar, Shimoga - 577 204 Karnataka, India.
Tel. +91-8182-57 280.
E-mail: nisarga_kwg@yahoo.com
(Neerchal Balakrishnaraj is currently working as a community organizer and training specialist with the Karnataka watershed development project)

Reference
Balakrishnaraj, Neerchal, Roland Benson and Prem Kumar (1998) Which is good? What needs to be changed? - An action research study of indigenous technological knowledge. Indo-Swiss Participative Watershed Development Project in Karnataka, Bangalore. (Neerchal Balakrishnaraj is currently doing research for a master's degree in Natural Resource Management at the Indian Institute of Forest Management in Bhopal.)

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