Lead author and World Agroforestry Centre scientist Edmundo Barrios together with partners from Embrapa and CIAT have launched a book to systematically guide the blending of local farmer knowledge about soil health with scientific experience. Its launch coincided with Brazil’s National Soil Conservation Day on 15 April 2012.
The book is written in Portuguese and entitled InPaC-S: Integração Participativa de Conhecimento sobre Indicadores de Qualidade do Sol – Guia Metodologico. Loosely translated into English as “Participatory Knowledge Integration about Indicators of Soil Quality - Methodological Guide.”
“The main objective of the InPaC-S methodology is to combine knowledge from farmers, extension professionals and researchers about soil quality, thus generating a ‘hybrid’ knowledge base that promotes the adoption of good agricultural practices,” explained Edmundo.
By hybrid knowledge, he was referring to knowledge that can better inform farmer decision making. The book provides guidelines on how to apply participatory tools in identifying, classifying and prioritizing local indicators of soil health knowledge so that they can complement technical indicators, and then addressing soil health constraints with good agricultural management principles and options. It is hoped, that improving communication between farmers and scientists should facilitate the adoption of agricultural management practices that conserve the soil resource.
Development of this participatory approach and methodology was initiated in Central America, later adapted and further developed in East Africa through South-South collaboration. South-South collaborations, for example, are those that encourage scientific collaboration between Latin American and African countries. Between 2008-2011, further development of the methodology involved its adaptation to different socio-ecological contexts of Brazil including agricultural landscapes in the Pantanal, Amazonia, Cerrado, Caatinga and Mata Atlantica ecoregions, through participatory workshops that trained close to 150 participants.
Next month the InPaC-S methodology will be used as a capacity building tool as part of the Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace. The Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace aims to benefit smallholder producers by enabling innovation through collaborative partnerships between Africa and Brazil. The capacity building session will take place in Mozambique in collaboration with the Institute of Agricultural Research of Mozambique (IIAM).
