Legitimizing local knowledge: From displacement to empowerment for third world people

Increasing attention has been given to indigenous knowledge in Third World rural societies as a potential basis for sustainable agricultural development. It has been found that many people have functional knowledge systems pertaining to their resources and environment, which are based on experience and experimentation, and which are sometimes based on unique epistemologies. Efforts have been made to include such knowledge in participatory research and projects. This paper discusses socio-political, institutional, and ethical issues that need to be considered in order to understand the actual limitations and contributions of such knowledge systems. It reviews the nature of local knowledge and suggests the need to recognize its unique values yet avoid romanticized views of its potential. Local knowledge and alternative bottom-up projects continue to be marginalized because of the dominance of conventional top-down R&approaches, pressures of agrochemical firms, scientific professionalism, and for other political-economic reasons. It is argued that the exploitation of local knowledge by formal institutions should be avoided; instead, people need to establish legitimacy of their knowledge for themselves, as a form of empowerment.Lori Ann Thrupp is presently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California Berkeley (in the Energy and Resources Program), pursuing work on sustainable agricultural development strategies. She received her doctoral and masters degree in Development Studies from the University of Sussex (U.K.), and her bachelors from Stanford University in Human Biology and Latin American Studies. Her interests are natural resource management, sustainable development, political ecology, agricultural technology transfer, indigenous knowledge, and environmental policy issues in developing countries. Her doctoral dissertation research was on The Political Ecology of Pesticide Use in Costa Rica, supported by a Fulbright Scholarship. She has also received grants from the National Wildlife Federation, Marshall Foundation, and Dudley Seers Fund. Her professional experiences include consulting, teaching, and research on natural resource issues and agroecology for organizations such as CATIE (a Tropical Agriculture Institute) in Costa Rica, the Pragma Corporation, USAID, the Organization of Tropical Studies, the International Institute for Environmental and Development (on a fuelwood energy project in Kenya), the Intermediate Technology Development Group, the Worldwatch Institute, Resources for the Future. She has published in both Spanish and English (including co-authorship of a book on EI Uso de los plaguicidas en Costa Rica, and co-editing a book with Robert Chambers and Arnold Pacey on Farmer First: Farmer Innovation and Agricultural Research).     

Theology and agricultural ethics at state universities: A rejoinder

Michael Eldridge's critique of the author's earlier paper on the place of theology in agricultural ethics at state universities fails in at least three places: (1) Eldridge presents an inadequate picture of how basic assumptions function in human thinking and misuses terms like public, private, particular, empirical, and common experience; (2) he wrongly distinguishes between philosophers and theologians on the bais of their openness to new data, ideas, and public criticism; (3) he misunderstands the meaning of the First Amendment. Baer argues that whenever faculty at a state university deal with the Big Questions—who we are, how we should live, and what it all means—they must be seen, for First Amendment purposes, as operating within the realm of religion. Without such a functional definition of religion, the state will inevitably give unfair advantage to nontheistic, secular answers to the Big Questions. Eldridge is wrong to claim that Dewey escapes the liabilities of particularity and parochialism in a way that theologians do not. He also misunderstands the nature of the First Amendment when he argues that public schools may legitimately propagate Dewey's naturalistic variety of religion. Baer claims that when state universities address the Big Questions, the demands of public justice will be met only if theologians participate in the discussion and debate.Richard A. Baer, Jr. is professor of environmental ethics at Cornell University and a Fellow of the Center for Public Justice in Washington, D.C.     

The varieties of sustainability

Each of four sections in this paper sketches the philosophical problems associated with a different dimension of sustainability. The untitled introductory section surveys the oft-noted discrepancies between different notions of sustainability, and notes that one element of the ambiguity relates to the different points of view taken by a participant in a system and a detached observer of the system. The second section, Sustainability as a System Describing Concept, examines epistemological puzzles that arise when one attempts to assess the truth or falsity of claims that attribute sustainability or non-sustainability. In particular, such claims generally presume bounded systems, but boundary conditions are value-laden. The third section, Sustainability as a Goal Prescribing Concept, examines puzzles that arise in attempting to define sustainability in normative terms. In particular, the question of whether sustainability is an intrinsic or instrumental value is examined. The final section, Sustainability and Bliss, offers an analysis of the moral responsibilities that human beings have, given the fact that knowledge of conditions for achieving sustainability can never be complete.Paul Thompson was President of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society during 1990 and 1991. He now directs the Center for Biotechnology Policy and Ethics, Institute of Biosciences and Technology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX. He is also Professor of Philosophy and of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M. His bookThe Ethics of Aid and Trade (Cambridge: 1992, Cambridge U. Press) reviews the alleged conflict of interest between U. S. farmers and efforts that would increase the productivity of agriculture in developing countries.     

A discourse on Forestry science

Forestry science is firmly based on the ideas of rationalization, emancipation, and progress as embedded in the Modernity Project. Its emergence in the late Seventeenth century is primarily a rationalization of timber production, although to some extend attention is given to other functions of the forest. As an applied science, forestry was preoccupied with bio-technical and economic research. The development in forestry science during the last four decades is described as a broadening of this narrow rationalization concept. Social and ecological dimensions of forestry are acknowledged as legitimate and undeniable fields for forestry research. The new rationalization concept is not yet operationalized, but encompasses besides economic efficiency also equity and ecological sustainability. Since the narrow rationalization concept resulted in irrational outcomes, the new concept of sustainable development might be characterized as a rationalization of the Modernity Project. As a critical counterpoint to this mainstream forestry thinking, a Non-modern Project is emerging. Indigenous forestry as an ethnoscience points at the cultural and philosophical biases still underlying professional forestry and forestry science.Laurent Umans worked as associate lecturer at the Department of Forestry, Agriculture University Wageningen, The Netherlands. Currently he is working for the Food and Agricultural Organization as an associate expert forestry development in the Hill Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project in Nepal. He published on the themes forestry and economic development and indigenous forestry.     

Is value conflict inherent in rural economic development? An exploratory examination of unrecognized choices

Rural development and economic change has generally been associated with growth and the in-migration of nonlocal firms or their branch plants and offices. Such change has been critiqued and at times resisted because of its implicit urbanism and conflict with rural values and modes of social interaction. The inevitability of the conflict has always been assumed, given the perspectives of development groups and many rural residents. This paper examines the apparent conflicts between the rural ethos and the growth ethos, and the considers the necessity for the pursuit of the forms of growth that tend to undermine rural values. The severely limited set of changes in the local economy considered by the common forms of growth-sponsoring economic development groups is then examined. Finally, the existence of alternative forms of economic change are hypothesized and their viability demonstrated. We conclude that improved economic well-being for rural residents need not sacrifice their values and lifestyles on the altar of urban-influenced economic growth.Peter B. Meyer is professor of Urban Policy at the University of Louisville. He was previously employed at The Pennsylvania State University where he directed the Local Economic Development Assistance Project, a research/technical assistance service to smaller cities, towns, and rural counties. Dr. Meyer's research interests are in processes of community and economic development in capitalist and third world countries and the ways in which processes and their outcomes are measured and valued.     

State,class, and technology in tobacco production

Recent debates over the persistence of family farms have focused on the importance of naturalistic obstacles to the capitalist development of agriculture. According to these arguments, the existence of these barriers in some realms of agricultural production precludes the development of wage labor. I argue, however, that in many instances these obstacles are based primarily on political factors. To demonstrate this thesis I illustrate how the tobacco program until recently has proved to be an obstacle to consolidation and structural change in tobacco production. The tobacco program has conditioned the extent of technological development and structural change in tobacco production. From the 1940s to the 1970s, the tobacco program maintained a system of small-scale producers and discouraged technological change in the industry. Changes in the program in the 1970s and 1980s, however, have contributed to the rapid mechanization and structural change among tobacco producers. Many of the obstacles to consolidation were overcome not by technological change, but by weakened political support for the tobacco program. These results suggest that in addition to economic and technological considerations, we need to assess more carefully the political foundations of the capitalist development of agriculture.Gary P. Green is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Institute of Community and Area Development at the University of Georgia. His research concentrates on the sociology of agriculture, political economy of rural development, and economic development and community change. He is currently involved in research on the effectiveness of local economic development strategies and self-development strategies among rural communities.     

Some reflections on Eastern European agriculture an introductory essay to the special issue on “agriculture in Eastern Europe”

This article reviews three general themes pertaining to the transformation of Eastern European agriculture from a command system to a market oriented system. The first theme deals with the diverse character of Eastern European agriculture. In a context in which the agricultures of this region are often considered homogenous, acknowledgement of the varied dimension of this sector is a key element in both analytical and political terms. The second theme pertains to the market. The historical and theoretical dispute over the role of the market has not only been central in the socio-economic reorganization of Eastern European countries and agricultures but is also a common element shared with the West. The third and final theme refers to the changing social stratification of rural regions. The emergence of new and powerful social groups and the demise of others represent fundamental aspects in the understanding of possible trajectories for development. The article concludes with a review of the contributions contained in this special issue of Agriculture and Human Values.Alessandro Bonanno is Associate Professor of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the author of numerous journal articles and books, among themSmall Farms (1987),Sociology of Agriculture (1989),Agrarian Policies and Agricultural Systems (1990), andThe Agricultural and Food Sector in the New Global Era (1993). He is also co-editor of the forthcoming book From Columbus to ConAgra: The Globalization of Agriculture and Food. Since the late 1980s, he has been researching issues pertaining to the Agricultural and Food Sector in selected Eastern European Countries.     

Interactions of formal and informal knowledge systems in village-based tree management in central India

This study critiques the idea of a Western science -- indigenous knowledge dichotomy in agricultural knowledge by examining the hybrid nature of knowledge use and incorporation by villagers in Madhya Pradesh, India. By analyzing knowledge systems as multi-leveled structures consisting of concrete practices linked to more abstract, explanatory concepts, this paper illustrates how information from multiple sources is integrated into local bodies of knowledge about tree management. Practices such as urea fertilization from formal global science might be explained by concepts such as that of a hot/cold duality from informal folk science. Similarly, other pieces of knowledge stemming from diverse knowledge systems are shown to become mixed and matched on practical and conceptual levels. Additionally, several knowledge elements used locally appear to be held in common by many knowledge systems around the world, rendering the determination of their origins in one system or another nearly impossible. These observations lead to the conclusion that local knowledge systems of tree management are better characterized as open systems rather than distinct, closed systems. Furthermore, the constant exchange of material between formal and informal, local and global systems renders untenable any strict dichotomy of knowledge systems.     

The goals and values of local economic development strategies in rural America

The goals and values of economic development strategies vary according to the individual communities that employ them. While economic development strategies are aimed at increasing jobs, income, and community wealth, the issue of who gains and who loses from economic change is often overlooked. The industrial development strategies of the 1960s and 1970s are giving way to local initiatives based on services. Although local efforts may mean greater local control, the globalization of the economy has exposed formerly remote areas to international competition. The challenge to communities will be to achieve a moderate, steady, and manageable pace of good growth. Each community will ultimately need to develop a strategy for economic growth that matches community desires with community resources.Thomas L. Daniels is Director of the Agricultural Preserve Board of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He is co-author ofRural Planning and Development in the United States, and has written several articles on rural ecconomic development.     

Gender, land, and water: From reform to counter-reform in Latin America

Rural women did not fare very well inthe land reforms carried out during the Latin Americanreformist period of the 1960s and 1970s, with womenbeing under-represented among the beneficiaries. It isargued that women have been excluded from access toand control over water for similar reasons that theywere excluded from access to land during thesereforms. The paper also investigates the extent towhich women have gained or lost access to land duringthe counter-reforms of the 1980s and 1990s. Underthe neo-liberal agenda, production cooperatives aswell as communal access to land have largely beenundermined in favor of privatization and theindividual parcelization of collectives. Significantland titling efforts are also being carried outthroughout the region to promote the development of avigorous land market. This latter period has also beencharacterized by the growth of the feminist movementthroughout Latin America and a growing commitment bystates to gender equity. The paper reviews the extentto which rural womens access to land and, thus, waterhas potentially been enhanced by recent changes inagrarian and legal codes.     

Celebrating hunger in Michigan: A critique of an emergency food program and an alternative for the future

Michigan Harvest Gathering is a popular and nationally acclaimed antihunger campaign. It represents a state-sponsored partnership among public, private, and nonprofit institutions to improve conditions for Michigan's citizens in need". This paper reviews the program, and in the process, critically examines its underlying assumptions about the nature of hunger and helping, about those who are hungry, and about the relationship of agriculture to the remediation of hunger throughout the state. It argues that, in keeping with Michigan's corporatist orientation, the program valorizes the agrofood industry at the expense of sustained public welfare. An alternative approach based on the development of greater local food autonomy provides a programmatic contrast to the elaboration of a helping industry designed to deliver emergency food assistance.An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the session: "Food, Social Values and the Future: Interdisciplinary Crystal-Gazing" at the Cuisine, Agriculture & Social Change conference, jointly sponsored by Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society and the Association for the Study of Food and Society, June 9–12, 1994, Tucson, AZ.     

Identifying ecosystem services using multiple methods: Lessons from the mangrove wetlands of Yucatan, Mexico

The failure to properly account forthe total value of environmental and natural resourcesresults in socially undesirable overexploitation anddegradation of complex ecosystems such as mangrovewetlands. However, most ecosystem valuation researchtoo often focuses on the question of what is the value and not enough on what peoplevalue. Nonmarket valuation practitioners have usedqualitative approaches in their work for some time.Yet, the relative strengths and weaknesses ofdifferent qualitative methods have been more thesubject of speculation than systematic research. Thestatistical examination of focus group and individualinterview data on ecosystem services illustrates thatthe two methods generate important but differentecosystem service data. Further, the data show thatthe use of multiple data collection methods offers amore robust understanding of what people value.     

Global contested terrain: The case of the tuna-dolphin controversy

Employing the case of the global tuna-fish industry, it is argued that the process of globalization is contested terrain as it opens free spaces to some classes or groups and closes free spaces to others; that the nation-States' regulatory abilities are weakened; and finally, that while some social movements may gain, others are marginalized. Three basic conclusions are reached. (1) The industry's actions were successfully contested by environmental groups supported by the legislative and judicial branches of the US State. (2) Simultaneously, pro-environmental legislation is currently threatened, along with several national and international environmental accords. (3) Workers in the US and, particularly, in Latin America are paying the consequences of the introduction of pro-environmental legislation and the actions of transnational corporations (TNCs).Douglas H. Constance is Research Associate of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. His research interests include the sociology of agriculture and environmental sociology. He is the author of several journal articles and is coauthor with Alessandro Bonanno of the forthcoming bookCaught in the Net: The Global Tuna Industry, Environmentalists, and the State.     

Filling the white space between the ads

In this personal essay, subtitled A jaundiced view of journalism after 30 years in the trenches, the author discusses the ethics challenges too often involved in the relationships between farm magazines and advertisers. Collusion between advertisers and editors is a clear and present danger, particularly in times when publications are struggling economically. Yet a more important question relates to agricultural journalists' collective failure to report on the underlying structural changes in agriculture and the broader society.Gene Logsdon is a farmer, writer, and editor who lives in Ohio and is recognized as one of agricultural journalism's most respected critics. He is the author of several books, includingHomesteading: How to Find New Independence on the Land, while his work also has appeared in major farm magazines and a newspaper column, The Country Rover. He studied philosophy and history at Bellarmine College and earned a master's degree in folklore and did doctoral work in American studies at Indiana University.     

The restructuring of the agricultural and food system: Social and economic equity in the reshaping of the Agrarian Question and the Food Question

The paper investigates the characteristics of the global restructuring of the agricultural and food system that has occurred in recent years. Emphasis is placed on the emergence of the Food and Natural Resource Question and its relation to the Agrarian Question. It is argued that rather than being separate issues, these are two aspects of a unified process occurring at the global level. Moreover, it is argued that the transnational unity of the agrarian question and the food question mandates a reconstruction of the arena within which production takes place. This phenomenon in turn generates a set of limits to domestic political institutions and locally generated social demands. The implications of the emergence of the international arena as locus of political action is discussed vis-a-vis the local level of socio-political action.Alessandro Bonanno is Associate Professor of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has researched among other topics, the structure of agriculture, the role of the State in agriculture, and regional and international development. Currently, he is investigating the processes of globalization and restructuring of the agriculture and food sector.     

Japan's green resources: Forest conservation and social values

Modern and historical Japanese societies are and were quite comfortable with a nature defined, designed, and dominated by humans. While contemporary Japanese are concerned about the environment, especially about non-timber (green) forest resources, conservation organizations are generally small and locally focused. Public forests, accounting for 40 percent of all Japan's forests, are intensively managed. At the national level, the timber program is operating below cost and there is increasing emphasis on non-timber management and rural economic development. A professional elite largely determines forest management goals and cultural barriers minimize broad public participation. Increasingly aware of the environmental impacts of their industrial society at home and abroad, the Japanese are becoming more environmentally concerned. Government agencies are especially proactive in enhancing environmental understanding among Japanese citizens and in sharing their resource management expertise with other Pacific Rim nations.     

Ideology and agricultural technology in the late twentieth century: Biotechnology as symbol and substance

The significance of biotechnology in agriculture during the late twentieth century has been as much in the realm of symbol and ideology as in its political economy. The ideological roots of biotechnology are long historical ones. The ideology of productivism, which was codified during mid-century out of a coincidence of interest among experiment stations, USDA, Congress, agribusiness, and agricultural commodity groups, has encountered numerous challenges since the 1970s. One of the major responses to the crisis of productionism was to forge a social definition of biotechnology as being a revolutionary technology. I conclude by discussing whether biotechnology, as both symbol and substance, is likely to be a basis for attempts to resuscitate productivism in the 1990s now that biotechnology is being demystified, its limits being appreciated, and its opposition still considerable.Frederick H. Buttel is Professor of Rural Sociology and Director of the Agricultural Technology and Family Farm Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His major areas of interest are the sociology of science, sociology of agriculture, and environmental sociology. Prior to joining the University of Wisconsin faculty, he was Professor of Rural Sociology and Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. In 1987 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. During 1990–91 he served as President of the Rural Sociological Society, and from 1989–92 he served as a member of the Council of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society.     

Learning in context through conflict and alignment: Farmers and scientists in search of sustainable agriculture

This article analyzes learning in context through the prism of a sustainable dairy-farming project. The research was performed within a nutrient management project that involved the participation of farmers and scientists. Differences between heterogeneous forms of farmers knowledge and scientific knowledge were discursively constructed during conflict and subsequent alignment over the validity and relevance of knowledge. Both conflict and alignment appeared to be essential for learning in context. Conflict spurred learning when disagreeing groups of actors developed their knowledge in order to strengthen their arguments. Conflict caused self-referentiality when the actors no longer listened to each other. This inhibited self-reflection, thus blocking ongoing learning. Nevertheless, after a period of alignment, scientific models and knowledge of farmers were reevaluated and recontextualized. Through determining how to use scientific models and farmers knowledge for further learning, aimed at a shared goal, the participating actors also learned how to learn.Jasper Eshuis is a PhD candidate in the Department of Communication Management at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. His research deals with multiple land use, governance processes, and farmers decision-making. He is currently interested in monitoring and trust.Marian Stuiver is a PhD candidate in the Department of Rural Sociology of Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Her current research focuses on nutrient management, farmers innovation, and co-production of knowledge within the agricultural sciences.     

Biotechnology and the environment: What is at risk?

This paper argues that the new biotechnologies will affect the natural environment primarily in two ways: by bringing relatively wild areas, such as forests and estuaries, under domestication, and by forcing areas now domesticated, such as farms, out of production, because of surpluses. The problem of the safety of biotechnology—the risk of some inadvertent side-effect—seems almost trivial in relation to the social and economic implications of these intentional uses. The paper proposes that we should be more concerned about the successful uses of biotechnology than about the possible mishaps or failures.Mark Sagoff is Senior Research Associate and Acting Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland. His book,The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law and the Environment (Cambridge University Press, 1988), deals with normative and conceptual issues in environmental law. Sagoff's work in ethical issues in biotechnology has received support from the National Science Foundation.