Vea la versión en español a continuación
In the Bolivian Andes, some officials are starting using local knowledge to improve their early warning systems for natural disasters.
For centuries, local farmers have used the signs of nature (clouds, stars, the behavior of plants and animals) to predict disasters like hail, floods and droughts, and to forecast the welcome rains that make crops grow.
Then, starting in 2004, Prosuco (a Bolivian organization) began to organize farmers with an interest in weather and organic farming. These expert farmers, called Yapuchiris, were encouraged to teach other farmers.
In southwest Bolivia, high on the Altiplano, the local government and the Technical University in Oruro are collaborating with some of these organized Yapuchiris to provide early warning, as Professor Gunnar Guzmán explained in a recent webinar. As he put it: the Yapuchiris, using local knowledge of nature, are excellent at making long-term predictions, three to four months in advance. Meteorologists cannot make such predictions, although they are quite accurate at about 4 days in the future.
Olson Paravicini of the Risk Management Unit of the government of Oruro added that the Yapuchiris’ knowledge is local, so that each one forecasts the weather for his or her own community. This matters in a place as big as Oruro. At 53,558 square kilometers, Oruro is about the size of New York state, bigger than the Netherlands. To apply local knowledge of weather over such a large area, Paravicini and colleagues are collaborating with groups of Yapuchiris, gathering their predictions to compile a departmental level forecast to provide early warnings of floods and other nasty weather.
One of the Yapuchiris, Bernabé Choquetopa, also had a slot on the webinar, explaining several of the signs he looks for. For example, when the leque leque (Andean lapwing) migrates back into Oruro in September, don Bernabé looks at its wing. If the patch on the bird’s wing is green, the rains will be good. Green eggs also mean good rain, and dark eggs mean drought. The signs reinforce each other, so after explaining that the ayrampu cactus was bearing lots of fruit and that the foxes had healthy coats, don Bernabé predicted that this would be a good, normal year for rains in his part of Oruro.
Professional weather observers are now paying attention to the Yapuchiris, who are increasingly organized and well respected. Guzmán thinks that some of the local signs of nature are 90% accurate, a probability that increases as several are used together.
Plants and animals that have evolved in a harsh landscape may have behaviors that reflect the coming weather. Observant local people have the wisdom to pay attention to the local patterns of life. I’m optimistic when I see local scientists who have respect for this knowledge. That alone is a good sign for the future.
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Forecasting the weather with an app
Scientific names
Ayrampu: Opuntia soehrensii
Andean lapwing: Vanellus resplendens
Andean fox: Lycalopex culpaeus
Further reading
Unfortunately, I can’t find a recording of the webinar (16 November 2020), but the seminar, the speakers and the titles of their presentations were:
Seminario Virtual Saberes Ancestrales de Bioindicadores Naturales para la Reducción de Riesgos Agropecuarios
Ing. Naida Rufino Challa, SEDAG-GAD ORU (Servicio Departamental de Agricultura y Ganadería, Gobierno Autónomo Departamental de Oruro). Mejoramiento del sistema de alerta temprana del sector agropecuario en el departamento de Oruro.
M.Sc. Ing. Gunnar D. Guzmán Vega, FCAN-UTO (Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Naturales, Universidad Técnica de Oruro). Efectividad de los indicadores naturales en la predicción climática en las comunidades.
Bernabé Choquetopa Rodríguez. Informante local. Pronósticos locales 2020-2021 del sur de Oruro.
Ing. Olson C. Paravicini Figueredo, UGR-GAD ORU (Unidad de Gestión de Riesgos, Gobierno Autónomo Departamental de Oruro). Bioindicadores y tecnología informática como sistema integrado de alerta temprana.
SABERES ANTIGUOS, ALERTA TEMPRANA
Por Jeff Bentley, 22 de noviembre del 2020
En los Andes bolivianos, algunas autoridades han empezado a usar los conocimientos locales para mejorar sus sistemas de alerta temprana de desastres naturales.
Durante siglos, los agricultores locales han leído los signos de la naturaleza (las nubes, las estrellas, el comportamiento de las plantas y los animales) para predecir desastres como la granizada, las riadas y las sequías, y para pronosticar las queridas lluvias que nutren a los cultivos.
Luego, a partir de 2004, Prosuco (una organización boliviana) comenzó a organizar a los agricultores interesados en el clima y la agricultura orgánica. Se les alentó a estos agricultores expertos, llamados Yapuchiris, a que enseñaran a los demás.
En el Altiplano del sudoeste de Bolivia, el gobierno local y la Universidad Técnica de Oruro están colaborando con algunos de estos Yapuchiris organizados para dar una alerta temprana, como explicó el Ingeniero Gunnar Guzmán hace poco en un webinar. Según él, los Yapuchiris, con su conocimiento local de la naturaleza, hacen acertadas predicciones a largo plazo, con tres o cuatro meses de anticipación. A cambio, los meteorólogos no pueden hacer eso, aunque hacen buenos pronósticos a unos 4 días en el futuro.
Olson Paravicini, de la Unidad de Gestión de Riesgos del Gobierno Autónomo Departamental de Oruro, añadió que el conocimiento de los Yapuchiris es local, de modo que cada uno pronostica el tiempo para su propia comunidad. Esto es importante en un lugar tan grande como Oruro. Con 53.558 kilómetros cuadrados, Oruro es el tamaño del Costa Rica, más grande que los Países Bajos. Para aplicar el conocimiento local del tiempo en una zona tan grande, Paravicini y sus colegas están colaborando con grupos de Yapuchiris, aprendiendo sus pronósticos para compilar un sistema de alerta temprana a nivel departamental para predecir riadas y otros desastres climáticos.
Uno de los Yapuchiris, Bernabé Choquetopa, también habló en el webinar, explicando varias de los indicadores que él busca. Por ejemplo, cuando el leque rebinar vuelve a Oruro en septiembre, don Bernabé mira su ala. Si es verduzca, las lluvias serán buenas. Los huevos verdes también significan buena lluvia, pero los huevos oscuros significan sequía. Los signos se refuerzan mutuamente, así que después de explicar que el cactus ayrampu estaban cargados de frutos y que los zorros tenían buen pelaje, don Bernabé predijo que este año sería bueno y normal para las lluvias en su sector de Oruro.
Ahora algunos meteorólogos profesionales prestan atención a los Yapuchiris, que son cada vez más organizados y respetados. Guzmán cree que algunos de los signos locales de la naturaleza tienen una precisión del 90%, probabilidad que aumenta a medida que se usan varios indicadores juntos.
Las plantas y los animales que han evolucionado en una tierra inhóspita pueden tener comportamientos que reflejan el tiempo y el clima. La gente local tiene la sabiduría de observar cuidadosamente a los patrones locales de vida. Soy optimista cuando veo que los científicos locales ganan respeto por este conocimiento. Eso sí es una buena señal para el futuro.
Related blog stories
Cultivando orgullo en los Andes
Videos sobre el tema
Pronosticar el clima con una aplicación
Nombres científicos
Ayrampu: Opuntia soehrensii
Leque leque: Vanellus resplendens
Zorro andino: Lycalopex culpaeus
Lectura adicional
Infelizmente, no ubico una grabación del webinar (16 de noviembre del 2020), pero el seminario virtual, los discursantes y sus presentaciones eran:
Seminario Virtual Saberes Ancestrales de Bioindicadores Naturales para la Reducción de Riesgos Agropecuarios
Ing. Naida Rufino Challa, SEDAG-GAD ORU (Servicio Departamental de Agricultura y Ganadería, Gobierno Autónomo Departamental de Oruro). Mejoramiento del sistema de alerta temprana del sector agropecuario en el departamento de Oruro.
M.Sc. Ing. Gunnar D. Guzmán Vega, FCAN-UTO (Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Naturales, Universidad Técnica de Oruro). Efectividad de los indicadores naturales en la predicción climática en las comunidades.
Bernabé Choquetopa Rodríguez. Informante local. Pronósticos locales 2020-2021 del sur de Oruro.
Ing. Olson C. Paravicini Figueredo, UGR-GAD ORU (Unidad de Gestión de Riesgos, Gobierno Autónomo Departamental de Oruro). Bioindicadores y tecnología informática como sistema integrado de alerta temprana.
Vea la versión en español a continuación
Like many Bolivians, Diego Ramírez never thought about remaining in the village where he was born, and starting a business on his family’s small farm. As a kid, he loved picking fruit on his grandparents’ small strawberry patch in the village of Ucuchi, and swimming with his friends in a pond fed with spring water, but he had to leave home at a young age to attend high school in the small city of Sacaba, and then he went on to study computer science at the university (UMSS) in the big city of Cochabamba, where he found work after graduation.
Years later, Diego’s dad called his seven children together to tell them that he was selling their grandparents’ farm. It made sense. The grandparents had died, and the land had been idle for about 15 years. Yet, it struck Diego as a tragedy, so he said “I’ll farm it.” Some people thought he was joking. In Ucuchi, people were leaving agriculture, not getting into it. Many had migrated to Bolivia’s eastern lowlands or to foreign countries, so many of the fields in Ucuchi were abandoned. It was not the sort of place that people like Diego normally return to.
When Diego decided to revive his family farm two years ago, he turned to the Internet for inspiration. Although strawberries have been grown for many years in Ucuchi, and they are a profitable crop around Cochabamba, Diego learned of a commercial strawberry farm in Santo Domingo, Santiago, in neighboring Chile, that gave advice and sold plants. Santo Domingo is 2450 km from Cochabamba, but Diego was so serious about strawberries that he went there over a weekend and brought back 500 strawberry plants. Crucially, he also learned about new technologies like drip irrigation, and planting in raised beds covered with plastic sheeting. Encouraged by his new knowledge, he found dealers in Cochabamba who sold drip irrigation equipment and he installed it, along with plastic mulch, a common method in modern strawberry production.
Diego was inclined towards producing strawberries agroecologically, so he contacted the Agrecol Andes Foundation which was then organizing an association of ecological farmers in Sacaba, the small city where Diego lives (half way between the farm and the big city of Cochabamba). In that way Diego became a certified ecological farmer under the SPG PAS (Participatory Guaranty System, Agroecological Farmers of Sacaba). Diego learned to make his own biol (a fermented solution of cow dung that fertilizes the soil and adds beneficial microbes to it). Now he mixes biol into the drip irrigation tank, fertilizing the strawberries one drop at a time.
Diego also makes his own organic sprays, like sulfur-lime brew and Bordeaux mix. He applies these solutions every two weeks to control powdery mildew, a common fungal disease, thrips (a small insect pest), red mites, and damping off. I was impressed. A lot of people talk about organic sprays, but few make their own. “It’s not that hard,” Diego shrugged, when I asked him where he found the time.
Diego finds the time to do a lot of admirable things. He has a natural flair for marketing and has designed his own packing boxes of thin cardboard, which he had printed in La Paz. His customers receive their fruit in a handsome box, rather than in a plastic bag, where fruit is easily damaged. He sells direct to customers who come to his farm, and at agroecological fairs and in stores that sell ecological products.
Diego still does his day job in the city, while also being active in community politics in Ucuchi. He also tends a small field of potatoes and he is planting fruit trees and prickly pear on the rocky slopes above his strawberry field. Diego has also started a farmers’ association with his neighbors, ten men and ten women, including mature adults and young people who are still in university.
The association members grow various crops, not just strawberries. Diego is teaching them to grow strawberries organically and to use drip irrigation. To encourage people to use these methods he has created his own demonstration plots. He has divided his grandparents’ strawberry field into three areas: one with his modern system, one with local varieties grown the old way on bare soil, with flood irrigation, and a third part with modern varieties grown the old way. The modern varieties do poorly when grown the way that Diego’s grandparents used. And Diego says the old way is too much work, mainly because of the weeding, irrigation, pests and diseases.
Ucuchi is an attractive village in the hills, with electricity, running water, a primary school and a small hospital. It is just off the main highway between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, an hour from the city of Cochabamba where you can buy or sell almost anything. Partly because of these advantages, some young people are returning to Ucuchi. Organic strawberries are hard to grow, and rare in Bolivia. But a unique product, like organic strawberries, and inspired leadership can help to stem the flow of migration, while showing that there are ways for young people to start a viable business in the countryside. Diego clearly loves being back in his home village, stopping his pickup truck to chat with people passing by on the village lanes. He also brings his own family to the farm on weekends, where he has put a new tile roof on his grandparents’ old adobe farm house.
Agriculture is more than making a profit. It is also about family history, community, and finding work that is satisfying and creative.
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EN EL FRUTILLAR DE NUEVO
Por Jeff Bentley, 15 de marzo del 2019
Como muchos bolivianos, Diego Ramírez nunca pensó en quedarse en la comunidad donde nació, y empezar un emprendimiento agrícola en las pequeñas chacras de su familia. Diego cuenta que de niño le encantaba recoger fruta en la pequeña parcela de frutillas de sus abuelos en la comunidad de Ucuchi, y nadar con sus amigos en una poza de riego, llena de agua de manantial, pero de joven tuvo que vivir en la ciudad pequeña de Sacaba para estudiar en colegio. Luego se fue a estudiar a la Universidad UMSS, la carrera de ingeniería de sistemas. Culminado los estudios, empezó a trabajar en la ciudad de Cochabamba.
Años más tarde, el padre de Diego llamó a sus siete hijos para decirles que estaba vendiendo el terreno de sus abuelos. Tenía sentido. Los abuelos habían fallecido, y nadie había trabajado la tierra durante unos 15 años. Sin embargo, a Diego le pareció una tragedia, así que dijo: “Yo la voy a trabajar”. Algunos pensaron que era un chiste. En Ucuchi, la gente estaba en plan de dejar la agricultura, no meterse en ella. Preferían emigrar al Oriente de Bolivia y muchos se habían ido del país. Por esta razón muchas de las parcelas están abandonadas. No es el tipo de lugar al que la gente como Diego normalmente regresa.
Cuando Diego decidió revivir su finca familiar ya hace dos años, buscó inspiración en el Internet. Aunque la frutilla es un cultivo ancestral de la comunidad de Ucuchi y muy rentable en Cochabamba, Diego se enteró de una empresa productora de frutillas en Santo Domingo, Santiago, en el vecino país de Chile, que daba consejos y vendía plantas. Santo Domingo está a 2450 km de Cochabamba, pero Diego se tomó tan en serio las frutillas que fue allí un fin de semana y trajo 500 plantas de frutillas. Crucialmente, también aprendió sobre el cultivo tecnificado de frutillas, aplicando el riego por goteo y plantado en camas tapadas con plástico. Movido por sus nuevos conocimientos, buscó distribuidores en Cochabamba que vendían equipos de riego por goteo y los instaló, junto con el mulch plástico, un método común en la producción moderna de fresas.
Diego se inclinó más en la producción agroecológica para producir frutillas, así que se contactó con la Fundación Agrecol Andes que estaba organizando una asociación de productores ecológicos en Sacaba, la pequeña ciudad donde Diego vive, a medio camino entre su terreno y la ciudad grande de Cochabamba. Diego ya tiene certificación de productor ecológico con SPG PAS (Sistema Participativo de Garantía Productores Agroecológicos Sacaba), Diego aprendió a hacer su propio biol (una solución fermentada de estiércol de vaca que fertiliza el suelo mientras añade microbios buenos). Ahora mezcla el biol en el tanque de riego por goteo, fertilizando las frutillas una gota a la vez.
Diego también hace sus propias soluciones orgánicas, como el sulfocálcico y el caldo bordelés. Fumiga estas preparaciones cada dos semanas para controlar el oídium, los thrips (un pequeño insecto), la arañuela roja, y la pudrición de cuello. Me impresionó. Mucha gente habla de aplicaciones orgánicos, pero pocos hacen las suyas. “No es tan difícil”, Diego dijo cuando le pregunté de dónde hallaba el tiempo.
Diego encuentra tiempo para hacer muchas cosas admirables. Tiene un talento natural para el marketing y ha diseñado sus propias cajas de cartón delgado, que ha hecho imprimir en La Paz. Sus clientes reciben la fruta en una bonita caja, en lugar de en una bolsa de plástico, donde la fruta se daña fácilmente. Vende directamente a los clientes que vienen a la misma parcela, en las ferias agroecológicas y en tiendas que comercializan productos ecológicos.
Diego todavía hace su trabajo normal en la ciudad, mientras que también tiene una cartera en la comunidad de Ucuchi. También cultiva una pequeña chacra de papas y está plantando árboles frutales y tunas en las laderas pedregosas arriba de su frutillar. Diego también ha iniciado una asociación de agricultores con sus vecinos, diez hombres y diez mujeres, incluidos adultos mayores y jóvenes que todavía están en la universidad.
Los miembros de la asociación cultivan diversos cultivos, no sólo frutillas. Diego les enseña a cultivar frutillas orgánicamente y a usar el riego por goteo. Para animar a la gente a usar estos métodos, ha creado sus propias parcelas de demostración. Ha dividido el frutillar de sus abuelos en tres áreas: una con su sistema moderno, tecnificado, otra con variedades locales cultivadas al estilo antiguo en suelo desnudo, con riego por inundación, y una tercera parte con variedades modernas cultivadas a la manera antigua. Las variedades modernas no rinden bien cuando se cultivan al estilo de los abuelos. Y Diego dice que la forma antigua es mucho trabajo, principalmente por el desmalezado, el riego y las enfermedades además de las plagas.
Ucuchi es una atractiva comunidad en las faldas del cerro, con electricidad, agua potable, una escuela primaria y un pequeño hospital. Está justo al lado de la carretera principal a Santa Cruz, a una hora de la ciudad de Cochabamba donde se puede comprar o vender casi cualquier cosa. En parte por estas ventajas, algunos jóvenes se están volviendo a la comunidad de Ucuchi. Las frutillas orgánicas son difíciles de cultivar, y son raras en Bolivia. Pero un producto único, como las frutillas orgánicas, y un liderazgo inspirado pueden ayudar a frenar el flujo de la migración, al mismo tiempo de mostrar que hay maneras viables para que los jóvenes empiecen con un emprendimiento personal en el campo. A Diego le encanta estar de vuelta en su comunidad: para su camioneta para charlar con la gente que pasa por los caminos del pueblo. También trae a su propia familia a la finca los fines de semana, donde ha puesto un nuevo techo de tejas en la vieja casa de adobe de sus abuelos.
La agricultura es más que la búsqueda de lucro. También se trata de la tradición familiar, la comunidad y de sentirse realizado con un trabajo satisfactorio y creativo.
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Farmers need new ideas, and researchers need data. When these two professional groups meet in the framework of collaborative or participatory research, it is often not clear who has to evolve in what direction: do farmers need to learn about research protocols, systematically collecting and analysing data, or do researchers need new ideas from farmers to guide their research agenda?
When grantees of the McKnight Foundation from West Africa recently met in Montpellier, France, at a Community of Practice (COP) meeting to share experiences, it was refreshing to see how this network has over time taken ownership of some key values on doing research with farmers on agroecology, as a way to move towards a more just and equitable food system with care for the people and the planet.
Out of the more than 60 people from farmer organisations, NGOs, research institutes and universities from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, I was glad to run into some old friends. Ali Maman Aminou is a farmer and director of the federation of farmer unions in Maradi (FUMA Gaskiya), one of the main farmer organisations in Niger.
In 2011, Aminou was one of the twelve people we trained during a 2-week intensive workshop on making quality farmer-to-farmer training videos. Ever since, Aminou has been using video in his interactions with the growing number of members, now some 18,000. The series of 10 videos on integrated striga and soil fertility management that were developed with ICRISAT and its partners were all translated into Hausa, which made it an ideal tool to trigger lively discussions with farming communities. Striga is a parasitic weed that attaches its roots to the roots of cereal crops, as such depriving the crop from the water and nutrients it needs.
“During one of the evenings that we showed the videos,” Aminou says, “one of the farmers spoke out and told he liked the videos, but that they had another technology to fight striga that was also efficient.” Aminou listened intently as the man went on to explain that farmers mix their millet seed with the powdery substance found around the seeds of the néré, a common tree across West Africa. When farmers sow millet, the néré powder apparently inhibits the striga seeds in the soil from germinating.
“This is amazing,” I told Aminou. “It would be great if you could turn this into a training video.” At that stage, it became apparent how much farmers and researchers had already begun to interact as equal players. Aminou swiftly turned to Salifou Nouhou Jangorzo, a lecturer from the University of Maradi in Niger, who had joined our discussion and said: “We need to find out more about this practice. We need all the details of how farmers do this.” Professor Salifou looked surprised at first; he had never heard of this practice before, but after 5 minutes of discussing with Aminou he was convinced. It turns out that he is planning a survey on a labour-saving weeding technology and so he decided on the spot that he would add some questions about managing striga with néré to his survey.
Farmer-to-farmer training videos, like the ones in the striga series, trigger farmers to experiment with new ideas. They also give farmers confidence to openly share their real-life experiences, knowledge and practices. Through a functional network these ideas can find their way back to researchers. In a progressive and collaborative research network, communication is not an end-product in itself, as Aminou has shown, but it feeds into a life of learning to make agriculture more resilient, profitable and responsive to farmers’ needs.
Finding a common ground between researchers and farmers does not happen overnight, it needs a concerted and long-term effort.
Note
The scientific name of the néré tree is Parkia biglobosa, also known as the African locust bean.
Acknowledgement
We greatly appreciate the endeavours and commitment of the Collaborative Crop Research Programme (CCRP) supported by the McKnight Foundation.
Farmer training videos
The videos on striga and on more than 200 other topics are freely downloadable from the Access Agriculture video platform www.accessagriculture.org
Related blogs
Social innovations triggered by videos: Evidence from Mali
Fighting striga and improving soil fertility with videos in Mali
Version française
Un terrain d’entente
Les agriculteurs ont besoin de nouvelles idées et les chercheurs ont besoin de données. Lorsque ces deux groupes professionnels se rencontrent dans le cadre d’une recherche collaborative ou participative, il est souvent difficile de savoir qui doit évoluer dans quelle direction : les agriculteurs ont-ils besoin de connaître les protocoles de recherche, de collecter et d’analyser systématiquement les données, ou les chercheurs ont-ils besoin de nouvelles idées de la part des agriculteurs pour orienter leur programme de recherche ?
Lorsque les projets financés par la Fondation McKnight en Afrique de l’Ouest se sont récemment rencontrés à Montpellier, en France, lors de la réunion de comité de pratique (CoP) pour un échange d’expériences, il était intéressant de voir comment ce réseau s’est approprié, au fil du temps, certaines valeurs clés sur la recherche avec les agriculteurs en matière d’agroécologie comme moyen d’évoluer vers un système alimentaire plus juste et plus équitable, soucieux des populations et de la planète.
Sur plus de 60 personnes issues d’organisations de producteurs, d’ONG, d’instituts de recherche et d’universités du Mali, du Burkina Faso et du Niger, j’ai été heureux de rencontrer de vieux amis. Ali Maman Aminou est agriculteur et directeur de la fédération des unions de producteurs de Maradi (FUMA Gaskiya), l’une des principales organisations paysannes du Niger.
En 2011, Aminou était parmi les douze personnes que nous avons formées lors d’un atelier intensif de deux semaines sur la réalisation de vidéos de formation de qualité paysan à paysan. Depuis, Aminou utilise les vidéos dans ses interactions avec le nombre croissant de membres de l’organisation, qui s’élève aujourd’hui à environ 18 000 personnes. La série de 10 vidéos sur la gestion intégrée du striga et de la fertilité des sols, développée avec l’ICRISAT et ses partenaires, a été traduite en Haoussa, ce qui rend l’outil idéal pour susciter de vives discussions avec les communautés agricoles. Le striga est une mauvaise herbe parasite qui attache ses racines aux racines des cultures céréalières, privant ainsi la culture de l’eau et des nutriments dont elle a besoin.
“Lors d’une soirée où nous avons montré les vidéos”, raconte Aminou, “un des agriculteurs a pris la parole et a dit qu’il aimait les vidéos, mais qu’ils avaient une autre technologie pour lutter contre le striga qui était aussi efficace”. Aminou a écouté attentivement comment les agriculteurs mélangent leurs graines de millet avec la substance poudreuse qui se trouve autour des graines du néré, un arbre commun dans toute l’Afrique de l’Ouest. Lorsque les agriculteurs sèment du millet, la poudre de néré empêche apparemment la germination des graines de striga dans le sol.
“C’est incroyable”, ai-je dit à Aminou. “Ce serait génial si vous pouviez en faire une vidéo de formation.” À ce stade, il est apparu clairement que les agriculteurs et les chercheurs avaient déjà commencé à interagir en tant qu’acteurs égaux. Aminou s’était rapidement tourné vers Salifou Nouhou Jangorzo, un professeur de l’Université de Maradi au Niger, qui s’était joint à notre discussion et a déclaré “Nous devons en savoir plus sur cette pratique. Nous avons besoin de tous les détails sur la façon dont les agriculteurs font cela “. Le professeur Salifou a d’abord eu l’air surpris ; il n’avait jamais entendu parler de cette pratique auparavant, mais après 5 minutes de discussion avec Aminou, il était convaincu. Il s’avère qu’il prévoit d’effectuer une enquête sur une technologie de désherbage permettant d’économiser la main-d’œuvre et il a donc décidé sur-le-champ d’ajouter à son enquête quelques questions sur la gestion de la striga avec la poudre de néré.
Les vidéos de formation paysan à paysan, comme celles de la série sur le striga, incitent les agriculteurs à expérimenter de nouvelles idées. Elles donnent également aux agriculteurs la confiance nécessaire pour partager ouvertement leurs expériences, leurs connaissances et leurs pratiques réelles de la vie. Grâce à un réseau fonctionnel, ces idées peuvent être transmises aux chercheurs. Dans un réseau de recherche progressive et collaborative, la communication n’est pas un produit final en soi, comme l’a montré Aminou, mais elle alimente une vie d’apprentissage pour rendre l’agriculture plus résistante, plus rentable et plus sensible aux besoins des agriculteurs.
Trouver un terrain d’entente entre chercheurs et agriculteurs ne se fait pas du jour au lendemain, il faut un effort concerté et à long terme.
Note :
Le nom scientifique du néré est Parkia biglobosa, également connu sous le nom de caroubier Africain.
Remerciements
Nous apprécions grandement les efforts et l’engagement du Programme de recherche collaborative sur les cultures (CCRP) soutenu par la Fondation McKnight.
Vidéos de formation des agriculteurs
Les vidéos sur le striga et sur plus de 200 autres sujets sont téléchargeables gratuitement sur la plateforme vidéo Access Agriculture www.accessagriculture.org/fr
Last year in Bangladesh, in the village of Begati Chikerbath, I visited Shamsur Naheris, an energetic extensionist in a bright orange sari. She had organized an exchange visit so that local women can tell their stories about making money and changing their lives by the simple means of raising chickens.
A year and a half earlier, the village had hosted an FFS (farmer field school) on poultry, where the women learned to vaccinate their chickens and ducks with eye drops and to keep the hens in small coops. When the hen has a clutch of eggs, she sits on them in a nest, called a hazol, which the villagers make themselves, a technique they learned in the FFS. The hazol is a kind of earthen bowl with two small cups on one side for feed and water. Because the hazol is big and heavy, the hens are less likely to upset and spill their food. The hen sits on straw in the hazol and broods her eggs with water and food handy. The hazol and the hen are placed inside a small chicken coop.
More chicks live to maturity with this system, and when they are six weeks old, they can be let loose to find their own food, which lowers costs and saves space in the chicken coop. Then the hen can start another brood. This way she gets five or six broods in a year, over a useful life of some five years, until she ends up in the family cooking pot.
“How can you stand to eat your old friend?” one visitor asked, concerned that the women might have become too attached to the hens to eat them.
“It’s easy, we just soften the meat first with green papaya,” one of the chicken farmers explains.
While there may be little sentimentality attached to the birds, the women are all keen to raise them. Every house has a small chicken coop in the back yard and all of the little structures are filled with healthy birds.
In a meeting with visitors from other villages, five local women told how raising chickens has improved not just their income, but also their self-esteem. The audience was clearly moved. The visitors were farmers and their husbands, 25 couples from six local community-based, water management groups. Having the husbands attend was a touch of inspiration. It would ensure that the men would be convinced and would support their wives as they started small-scale commercial poultry.
Even a simple technical innovation, such as a chicken coop and an improved nest, may require some training and clever community organizing.
Acknowledgements
The extensionists mentioned in this paper were Community development facilitators (CDF) for the Blue Gold Project, which is financed by the government of the Netherlands to improve water management in Bangladesh.
A related video
Watch this video on Taking care of local chickens
In my blog, Out of space, I talked about how the energy crisis may make chemical fertilizers unaffordable to farmers in the foreseeable future. Modern agriculture will need to become less dependent on expensive external inputs such as animal feed and fertilizer, and make better use of knowledge of the ecological processes that shape the interplay between soil, nutrients, microorganisms and plants. But whether farming will remain a viable business for European farmers in the next decade, will not only depend on new knowledge.
A recent radio broadcast on Radio 1 mentioned that in Belgium since 1980 two thirds of the farmers have abandoned this profession, with currently only some 30,000 farmers remaining in business. And many see a bleak future. With large corporations and supermarkets keeping the price of commodities at rock bottom, and at times even below the production cost, it comes as no surprise that few young people still see a future in farming. A neighbouring dairy farmer in Belgium told me once that the difference of 1 Euro cent per litre of milk he sells can make or break his year. In 2016, around 30% of French farmers had an income below €350 per month, less than one third of the minimum wage.
One French farmer (often a dairy farmer) commits suicide every two days, according to a survey conducted by the French national public health agency. The suicide rate among Swiss farmers is almost 40% higher than the average for men in rural areas. The reasons include financial worries and inheritance problems related to passing the farm on to their children. The EU farmers’ union said this alarming situation should be addressed immediately, emphasising that the farming community deserves better recognition.
How has it come so far? And is there still time to change the tide?
While reading a book on the history of the Belgian farmers’ organisation, called the Boerenbond (Farmers’ League), I was struck by how deeply engrained our food crisis is and how much history has shaped our agricultural landscape and food crisis.
As the steam engine made it possible to transport food much faster and over longer distances, from 1880 onwards large amounts of cheap food from America, Canada, Russia, India and Australia flooded the European markets. This resulted in a sharp drop in food prices and many farmers were forced to stop or expand, others migrated to Canada, the USA, Argentina, and Brazil.
From the early 1890s Belgian farmers began organising into a cooperative to make group purchases of chemical fertilisers, seed, animal fodder, milking machines and other equipment. Milk adulteration was one dubious strategy some farmers used to make a living.
As early as 1902 the Boerenbond started providing administrative support to its members. Basically, consultants were recruited, subsidised by the Ministry of Agriculture, to keep an eye on the financial books of farmers, and of the quality of their milk. The Ministry also invested in mobile milking schools to teach farm women about dairy and milk processing. Along with milking competitions this boosted the attention to quality and hygiene.
The Boerenbond increasingly tried to bring various regional farmer organisations and milk cooperatives under its wing. In between the two World Wars they had representatives in Parliament, and they had their own oil mills, warehouses, laboratories and animal feed factory (made, for instance from waste chaff from the flax industry). The Boerenbond didn’t risk manufacturing their own chemical fertilizer, but bought shares in some of the large chemical companies. Group marketing, education, social security, credit and insurance were all managed in-house to support its members.
It all seemed so progressive, but by the 1930s, deepened by the stock market crash in 1929, the organisation was in a dire financial situation. After the crash of the potato and milk prices in 1936, the government realised that the Boerenbond was no longer capable of providing all these services, so the government set up its own credit and marketing institutions for milk, grain and horticultural crops.
Shortly after the Second World War, the Marshall Plan provided food aid and contributed to the reconstruction of Europe, under the condition that Western Europe subscribe to international free trade. While economic cooperation and integration gradually took shape, the economic advisors of the Boerenbond pleaded to keep a certain level of national autonomy for matters related to agriculture. But as food and milk production increased, the need for export markets grew and the Boerenbond became a strong advocate of European integration.
In 1958, a year after the European Economic Community was established, member countries developed an agricultural policy meant to guarantee a decent income for farmers. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, productivity enhancement was considered a priority, but farmers found it hard to keep on investing in restructuring their farms to ever more specialised production units while over-production resulted in falling prices. In reality, farmers had to take larger loans and earned less and less. As in the USA, European farmers were buying more machinery, paying more for inputs, and falling deeper in debt.
In 1984, the European Community introduced production quotas to address the shocking situation of milk lakes and butter mountains. With very narrow profit margins set by a limited number of buyers, many farmers gave up.
For those who remained in business, the quotas lasted for about 30 years. By 2015 dairy farmers again could produce as much as they wanted.
The European Commission thought that this liberalisation would not bring back those lakes and mountains, because there was a growing market from developing countries, including China, and price monitoring had improved. In reality, in an attempt to prop up prices and curb the dairy crisis, Brussels has been buying up milk since 2015.
Stockpiled in warehouses, mainly in France, Germany and Belgium, the sacks of milk powder are a déjà vu of the milk lakes. Milk farmers and traders fear that these stockpiles are dragging down prices, as buyers expect the dried milk lakes to be sold off at any time.
Classical economics is based on the idea of many willing buyers and many willing sellers. In modern Europe there are many regulated farmers, buying agrochemicals, seed and animal feed from a few corporations and selling to just a few buyers. Farmers are forced to take prices for inputs set by large corporations, while prices of raw milk are fixed by supermarkets who have concentrated the power of the market. Whether they buy or sell, farmers are price takers, caught in the middle between monopolistic suppliers and a few powerful buyers. And farmers are paying a high price: input costs rose by 40% between 2000 and 2010.
The EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) will shortly vote on new amendments including the support to protein crops to reduce dependence on imports (read “GMO soya”), and a mandatory introduction of leguminous crops in the rotation in Good Agricultural Environmental Practices.
While EU policies can contribute to protecting our farmers and our environment, consumers also have a crucial role to play. As consumers we have no idea how the continuous search for cheapest products is putting farmers in a stranglehold. While Fairtrade schemes are a nice thought, in reality all food sold anywhere should be fair for the people who produce it, including our own dairy farmers.
For more than a century, strong farmer organisations such as the Boerenbond have tried to protect farmers’ interests by promoting a model of industrial agriculture. How the Boerenbond will deal with farmers’ hard realities, the complexities of a changing climate, environmental degradation and economic pressure of corporations and supermarkets will determine its future relevance.
Improved consumer awareness to buy local produce at a fair price, enhanced access to affordable animal feed and policies conducive to environmentally sound family farming will decide whether farmers will be able to survive or be replaced by new smart agriculture that can do without farmers, using machineries and investment funds.
Further reading
Belgische Boerenbond. 1990. 100 jaar Boerenbond in Beeld. 1890-1990. Dir. Eco-BB – S. Minten, Leuven, 199 pp
Ulmer, Karin. 2019. The Common Agricultural Policy of Europe: making farmers in the Global South hungry. In: Who is Paying the Bill. Report published by SDG Watch Europe, pp. 21-30. https://www.sdgwatcheurope.org/documents/2019/08/whos-paying-the-bill.pdf/
IPES-Food. 2019. Towards a Common Food Policy for the EU.
www.ipes-food.org/pages/CommonFoodPolicy
Related blogs
Further viewing
Access Agriculture has a collection of videos for small-scale dairy farmers in developing countries.
Hydroponic fodder ; Pure milk is good milk ; Keeping milk free from antibiotics ; Managing cattle ticks; Taking milk to the collection center ; Keeping milk clean and fresh ; Hand milking of dairy cows; Herbal medicines against mastitis ; Making rennet ; Making fresh cheese ; Making yoghurt at home
