Reinventing Indigenous Knowledge

Indigenous farming communities in Indonesia andaround the world have probably lived the way theyalways have: relying on their indigenous knowledgeand skills they learned from their parents andneighbors.The search for miracle seeds, begun in 1940's, waspart of a major effort to fight world hunger. Thedwarf Mexican wheat, for example, could producequadruple the amount of harvest, and similarly themiracle rice seed-IR8-could produce more than doublethe traditional rates of rice production, both withapplication of urea. The Green Revolution quicklyreplaced traditional agriculture. In fact, itdestroyed the existing sustainable system ofIndonesian agriculture and replaced it withfuel-based agricultural system, heavily dependent onmanufactured chemicals. On the contrary, IPM trainedfarmers to observe and collect field data and conductagro-ecological system analyses that prepared farmersto think critically and to make smart decisions abouttheir crops.This book should bring some light on valuablediscussion of the large, indeed global, problem offood production, in the long forgotten indigenousknowledge systems on a meaningful local level.

Autorentext

. Elias Tana Moning, Ed. D., Center for International Education, School of Education, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Massachusetts. . Master of Agriculture, Colorado State University at Fort Collins, Colorado. . Director and Owner Outreach International Bioenergy - Jakarta, Indonesia.

Klappentext
Indigenous farming communities in Indonesia and around the world have probably lived the way they always have: relying on their indigenous knowledge and skills they learned from their parents and neighbors. The search for miracle seeds, begun in 1940's, was part of a major effort to fight world hunger. The dwarf Mexican wheat, for example, could produce quadruple the amount of harvest, and similarly the miracle rice seed-IR8-could produce more than double the traditional rates of rice production, both with application of urea. The Green Revolution quickly replaced traditional agriculture. In fact, it destroyed the existing sustainable system of Indonesian agriculture and replaced it with fuel-based agricultural system, heavily dependent on manufactured chemicals. On the contrary, IPM trained farmers to observe and collect field data and conduct agro-ecological system analyses that prepared farmers to think critically and to make smart decisions about their crops. This book should bring some light on valuable discussion of the large, indeed global, problem of food production, in the long forgotten indigenous knowledge systems on a meaningful local level.