Exploring Agrodiversity

by Brookfield, H. C.

• ISBN13: 9780231102339
• ISBN10: 023110233X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-11-01
• Publisher: COLUMBIA UNIV PRESS

Summary

Small farmers are often viewed as engaging in wasteful practices that wreak ecological havoc. Exploring Agrodiversitysets the record straight: Small farmers are in fact ingenious and inventive and engage in a diverse range of land-management strategies, many of them resourcefully geared toward conserving resources, especially soil. They have shown considerable resilience in the face of major onslaughts against their way of life by outsiders and government.Using case studies from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific, this book provides in-depth analysis of agricultural diversity and explores its history. The book also considers the effect of the "gene revolution" on small farmers and reviews the effects of the "green revolution" in Asian countries. In conclusion, it questions whether the diverse agricultural practices employed by small farmers can survive modern pressures and the global ambitions of the biotechnology industry.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Introducing an Exploration	xi
The Plan of the Book	xvi
Acknowledgments	xviii
Part I. Presenting Agrodiversity
Presenting Diversity by Example: Mintima and Bayninan	3	(20)
Mintima, Chimbu, Papua New Guinea	3	(13)
Bayninan, Ifugao, Philippines	16	(4)
Comment: Dimensions of Diversity	20	(3)
Diversity, Stress, and Opportunity	23	(17)
Three Contrasted Examples	23	(1)
Threats to Crop Biodiversity: Paucartambo, Peru	23	(4)
A People Resettled Again and Again: The Zande of the Southern Sudan	27	(5)
The City in the Village: Four Villages Around Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	32	(6)
Comment Arising from the First Two Chapters	38	(2)
Defining, Describing, and Writing About Agrodiversity	40	(19)
Summarizing the Elements	40	(2)
Defining Agrodiversity	42	(4)
Describing and Classifying Agrodiversity	46	(4)
Following What Farmers Do	50	(2)
Analyzing and Writing About Agrodiversity	52	(2)
Themes for a Structured Argument	54	(2)
Two Cautions	56	(1)
The Way Forward	57	(2)
Learning About the History of Agrodiversity	59	(21)
Two Very Relevant Questions	59	(9)
Selection of Favored Sites	68	(1)
Diversity in Early Management: Evidence from the Ground Surface	69	(4)
Evidence from Within the Soil	73	(2)
Toward Answers to the Questions	75	(5)
Understanding Soils and Soil-Plant Dynamics	80	(23)
Introducing Soils	80	(2)
Soil Taxonomy and Its Problems	82	(6)
Soil-Forming Processes	88	(2)
Introducing Nutrients and Soil-Plant Relationships	90	(6)
The Human Factor	96	(7)
Part II. Diversity Within Land Rotational Systems
Analyzing Shifting Cultivation	103	(20)
Introducing Part II	103	(2)
Farming in the Forests of Borneo	105	(11)
Borneo in Perspective	116	(3)
The Forces of Change	119	(4)
Alternative Ways to Farm Parsimonious Soils	123	(17)
Citemene and Fundikila: Northeastern Zambia	123	(9)
Farming Systems Across Space and Through Time	132	(6)
Some Concluding Remarks About Work on Shifting Cultivation	138	(2)
Managing Plants in the Fallow and the Forest	140	(17)
Introducing the Management of Plants	140	(1)
Managing the Sucessional Forest in Latin America	141	(3)
Managed Sucessional Fallows in Amazonia and Southeast Asia	144	(5)
Complex Multistory Agroforests in Southeast Asia	149	(2)
What Is Natural and What Is Human-Made?	151	(3)
Using Plants and Soil in Conjunction	154	(2)
Conclusion	156	(1)
Coping with Problems: Degraded Land, Slope Dynamics, and Flood	157	(22)
Degraded Land	157	(4)
Coping with Degradation in Southeastern Ghana	161	(4)
Managing the Dynamics of Steep Slopes	165	(5)
Managing Water	170	(3)
Discussion	173	(6)
Part III. Paths of Transformation
Who Has Driven Agricultural Change?	179	(19)
Introducing Part III	179	(2)
Bursts of Innovation and Incremental Change	181	(2)
Two Completed Experiments	183	(5)
Agricultural and Social Change in Japan, 1700-1950	188	(6)
Japan and Java	194	(2)
Conclusions	196	(2)
Farmer-Driven Transformation in Modern Times	198	(20)
A Focus on Spontaneous Change	198	(3)
Management and Investment in a Sahel Village	201	(5)
Management and Migration Among the Kofyar of Northern Nigeria	206	(5)
Interference and Invention in Machakos, Kenya	211	(3)
Intensification, Revolution, and Agrarian Transformation: A Review	214	(4)
The Green Revolution	218	(23)
Science and Public Policy as the Drivers of Change	218	(4)
North and South India	222	(8)
Farmers and the State in Java	230	(3)
Back to Diversity	233	(2)
Conclusions	235	(6)
Part IV. The Future of Agrodiversity
Recent Trends in Agriculture	241	(21)
Economy and Ecology Hand in Hand	241	(3)
The Background: Genetic Erosion and Conservation	244	(5)
Innovations in Plant Breeding	249	(4)
Alternative Agriculture in the North	253	(4)
The Special Case of Cuba	257	(5)
Science, Farmers, and Politics	262	(19)
A Check to the Seed-Chemical Juggernaut	262	(3)
Progress in Wider Biotechnology Fields	265	(3)
Biosafety and Ethical Issues	268	(2)
Understanding the Scientific Basis of Agrodiversity	270	(5)
Biophysical Diversity and Its Management: Alternatives to Herbicides	275	(1)
Diversity in Farm Management	276	(2)
The Organizational Domain: An Area of Weakness	278	(1)
The Conditions for Success of Diversity	279	(2)
Epilogue: Looking at the Future	281	(6)
Allies of Agrodiversity	281	(3)
In Conclusion	284	(3)
References	287	(38)
Index	325