From ikdm@nuffic.nl Fri Aug 25 02:56:33 2000 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id CAA60708 for ; Fri, 25 Aug 2000 02:56:32 -0700 Received: from pigeon.nuffic.nl (pigeon.nuffic.nl [195.169.96.35]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id CAA11354 for ; Fri, 25 Aug 2000 02:56:31 -0700 Received: by pigeon.nuffic.nl with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Fri, 25 Aug 2000 11:54:28 +0200 Message-ID: <82C169575189D311856E00508B4AA18F14211F@pigeon.nuffic.nl> From: "Marrewijk, Anna van" To: indknow@u.washington.edu Subject: RE: draft letter to ed NYTimes - rce polyculture article Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 11:54:23 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Dear members of IndKnow-L This is to inform you that Nuffic-CIRAN (the Centre for International Advisory Networks http://www.nuffic.nl/ciran/index.html), publisher of the Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor (http://www.nuffic.nl/ciran/ikdm), has written directly to Isidor F. Ruderfer regarding his intended reaction on the rice polyculture article in the New York Times. We advised Mr Ruderfer to elaborate more on the indigenous knowledge SYSTEMS part instead of focusing on traditional or indigenous peoples and cultures, so as to bring down the point on a more elevated level transcending the individual case. We proposed him to also include a passage referring to the fact that all over the world farmers are used to work with different varieties of seeds at the same time and thus practice mixed cropping in order to heighten yields and reduce fertilizer imput (see article in the IK&DM: Indah Setyawati, 'Environmental variability, IK and the use of rice variety' describing the situation among Apau Ping farmers who plant a minimum of two and a maximum of eleven rice varieties at a time - http://www.nuffic.nl/ciran/ikdm/4-2/articles/setyawati.html). This is common practice. What is important to stress, however, is that local farmers are and have probably always been experimenting with varieties. These trials and experiments of local farmers is one aspect scientists that and policy makers should not forget when talking about sustainable agriculture as it might well lead the way to sustainability that really works. (See E.M. Igbokwe, 'From proces to innovation: land use intensity practices among smallholder rice farmers in Eastern Nigeria - http://www.nuffic.nl/ciran/ikdm/7-1/igbokwe.html; see also Yunita T. Winarto, 'Maintaining seed diversity during the Green Revolution', confirming the decline in the diversity of rice varieties as a result of the introduction of high-yielding varieties for rice farmers on the north coast of West Java, Indonesia, and looking at the activities of those farmers who kept on experimenting with rice varieties and thus maintained seed diversity. - http://www.nuffic.nl/ciran/ikdm/5-3/articles/seed.html) As to the second part of his letter, in which Mr Ruderfer comments upon the relation or tension between science and other systems of knowledge, we referred him to the World Science Conference held in Budapest, Hungary, 26 June - 1 July 1999 (http://www.unesco.org/opi/eng/unescopress/index.htm), and to the debate in the IK&DMonitor about the issue of indigenous versus scientific knowledge sparked off by an article written by Arun Agrawal (http://www.nuffic.nl/ciran/ikdm/4-3/articles/intro.html). We hope to be able to place Mr Ruderfer's Letter-to-the Editor online on the front page of the IK Pages - http://www.nuffic.nl/ik-pages - including a link to the NYTimes article that prompted this reaction. Anna van Marrewijk Editor, Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor Nuffic-CIRAN P.O. Box 29777 2502 LT The Hague The Netherlands Tel.: +31-70-4260 324 Fax: +31-70-4260 329 E-mail: ikdm@nuffic.nl http://www.nuffic.nl/ciran/ikdm .