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Indigenous knowledge and sustainable agricultural resources management under rainfed agro-ecosystem

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Title Indigenous knowledge and sustainable agricultural resources management under rainfed agro-ecosystem
 
Creator Singh, Ranjay K
Sureja, Amish K
 
Subject Indigenous knowledge
Natural resources conservation
Indigenous varieties
Tribal farmers
Sustainability
 
Description 642-654
The paper demonstrates the tribal farmers’ wisdom, perception and their criteria developed for the agricultural resources conservation and survival under the risk prone agro-ecosystem of Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh. The investigation was carried out in seven villages dominated by Gond, Baiga and Pradhan tribes. Conventional and participatory methods were applied to record the data. The result indicates that, despite the increasing commercialization of agriculture, the great majority of the farmers in the area are peasants, or small-scale producers. After centuries of cultural and biological evolution, traditional farmers have developed and inherited complex farming systems, adapted to the risk prone situations. These have helped them to conserve and sustainably manage harsh environments and meet their subsistence need without depending on costly energy based inputs. Agro-ecological and ethno-ecological evidence in vogue among the tribal community increasingly indicates that these systems are productive, sustainable, ecologically sound, and tuned to the social, economic, and cultural features of the local tribe. Some of the cultural adaptations that farmers have developed in the area include: domestication and conservation of diversity of plants and maintenance of a wide genetic resource base. Farmers are competent to make vertical agricultural development through the series of traditional resource conserving practices, variety conservation, weed, pest, nutrient, and water management practices to deal with socio-environmental changes. Scientists involved in agricultural research and development must try to learn, systematize and incorporate the farmers’ practices, before this wealth of practical knowledge is lost forever, given that most traditional farming systems are rapidly disappearing in the face of major social, economic and political changes occurring in developing societies.
 
Date 2008-11-11T07:13:19Z
2008-11-11T07:13:19Z
2008-10
 
Type Article
 
Identifier 0972-5938
http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/2384
 
Language en_US
 
Relation Int. Cl. ⁸ : A01
 
Publisher CSIR
 
Source IJTK Vol.7(4) [October 2008]