An Outline of a Strategy to Preserve, Develop or Evolve and to Employ the Competence of indigenous people to operate their traditional food systems as an adjunct to sustainable food production.
First of all, let us weed out certain peculiar usages of English language, semantic confusion and redundancies in the heading provided for this discussion. We surmise that what is required here is an outline of a strategy bundle to preserve, develop or evolve and to employ the competence of indigenous people to operate their traditional food systems as an adjunct to sustainable food production.
Consider now, one may learn all about how to swim in great detail from an illustrated book, but possessing that knowledge does not make one a swimmer. Likewise, ‘knowledge of indigenous people’ will serve no practical purpose unless it is coupled with a sufficient skill to apply that knowledge, in other words, this combination constitutes the relevant competence which needs to be preserved.
This unfortunate neglect of relevant skill renders most impressive data collections items highly suited to some intellectual museum, but worthless in the field. We affirm clear thought free from jingling jargon is essential to formulate a discussion framework if one expects it to result in contributions that would be of any practical use. We hope the future discussions on this forum would meet this requirement.
Having thus established a clear frame of reference for the current discussion, let us proceed to identify what type of competence ought to be preserved and nurtured, and then go on to outline the strategic actions required to achieve our objective. Selection of this competence has to be guided by the following obvious criteria:
- Is the application of this competence benign to the environment? Slash and burn method practised by many indigenous people is patently unsuitable under today’s conditions.
- Is it possible to engage in selected practice on a sustained basis yielding an appreciable quantity of food of sufficient quality?
- Does the engagement in the chosen practice make a significant contribution to one’s livelihood?
- Is there a sufficient area of suitable land available for the practice?
Once we have selected indigenous agricultural practices which meet the criteria listed above, we can undertake appropriate measures to achieve our objectives:
• Preservation of the relevant agricultural competence requires four simultaneous efforts:
- Immediate halt to activities that would prevent the application of such competence by denying indigenous agriculturalists access to their traditional lands either by legal or illegal means. Extraction industries, land grabs by agro-industry and threats to indigenous peoples have taken place throughout the world. Preservation of anything calls for rapid enforced legal action to present its disappearance.
- Ensuring the continued existence of indigenous competence involves two distinct but related measures. It would be useful to use audio-visual recordings of how indigenous people engage in food production and use. This requires such recordings of how each sub-system in their food systems are operated. To recap what sub-systems would justifiably constitute a food system are (not necessarily according to tradesmen and academics who may once in a while water their potted cactus):
- Yielder; where food is grown or harvested from.
- Harvester; how food is gathered from yielder sub-system.
- Transport; how food is transported from place to place until final consumption.
- Preservation; ways of preserving food either in toto or processed in some way.
- Storage; may range from one’s own pantry to a large cold storage facility.
- Culinary; how food is prepared for the table.
- Supplementary; methods used to restore soil fertility, irrigation, dealing with pests etc., which was necessitated by the repeated use of the same plots of land by sedentary populations.
- Last sub-system to evolve even though much irrelevant verbiage is spent on it, is the trade sub-system which needs no elaboration.
- Written documentation would be useful as an adjunct to the audio-visual records of the sub-systems in operation as described about. Unless this is done, one would be left with ‘knowledge’ which non of the knowledge gatherers would be able to use except to display their erudition at fine conferences free from dung and dirt. Such scientific gatherings do use food in varying quantities, but alas, produce none.
- While steps 2 and 3 in conjunction go some way to preserve the required competence, we cannot be certain of its preservation unless and until a certain number of indigenous people should continue to engage in their traditional food production and use. Ensuring this calls for step 1, prevention of disturbing outside intrusion, especially by tradesmen and their minions, modernisers of every ilk, a wide variety of improvers etc. At the same time, financial incentives, health care and education with an emphasis on the value of the way of life pursued by the indigenous people should be provided. Unfortunately, the perverse value system embodies in ‘modern education’ devalues the traditional while championing an addiction to consumption with a view to increased profit for tradesmen, money-mongers, stock jobbers etc.
• Development or evolution of indigenous agriculture requires stringently enforced legal measures to protect the patrimony of the indigenous peoples from outside intrusions, which often come in a seemingly benign guise. For instance, introduction of ‘modern’ technology, political dogmas of vested interests, etc. It is critical to save the indigenous people from being ‘colonised by do-gooders.’ Once this has been ensured, the following measures may be undertaken to evolve the indigenous practices in a natural manner at a pace desired by those who engage in it.
- Encourage and facilitate the relevant indigenous practitioners of traditional agriculture to meet and discuss how to improve their methods. This should be conducted in their own dialect, for even among many indigenous communities living not very far apart, there are often significant dialectal differences. Neither outside ‘inputters’ of new ideas or linguists should be included in such gatherings owing to their disruptive influence on what we attempt to preserve and nurture. Participants should then be encouraged to try new way of their own design.
- In follow-up gatherings, they ought to evaluate their new way. If better than the previous method, facilitate its wider application with sufficient means compatible with the existing indigenous practice.
- Improvements designed by indigenous people should be widely disseminated among the members of the same ethnic group, and if identical original methods are used by other ethnic groups, their agriculturalists may be informed of the improvements with a view to making use of them. This should be undertaken in the type of gatherings described in 1 above.
- When such an improvement has been successfully in use for three years or more, it should be archived by audio-visual and written forms.
• Continued employment of traditional agricultural practices has been facing a myriad of threats, all of which arise from unbridled greed for gain wrapped in pseudo-altruistic garb. Let us consider two of the favourite ploys used here:
- “Those poor indigenous people” should not be denied modern technology! Let us not leave them behind! Following these sanctimonious cries, cell-networks and cheap cell-phones are made available to indigenous youngsters while the altruist’s mentors have gained the right to run a national or a regional phone network. What the possession of a cell-phone does to a poorly educated youngster and his desire to work needs no description.
- The next altruistic trick is to clamour for other infra-structural improvements like road construction not in order to enable to export their produce, but mostly to sell them items calculated to destroy their mode of life in every conceivable respect including diseases hitherto unknown to them. Otherwise, roads are a boon to loggers or those engaged in extraction trade, both of which are effective in rendering indigenous culture extinct. If interested, one may look up the unsavoury saga of Fordlandia in the Amazons.
• Post protective application of indigenous methods of food production; once indigenous communities are protected from being swamped into extinction by the altruists described above, it is important to build an appropriate infra-structure as benign to the environment as possible. Whenever feasible, water and rail transport should receive priority over highways. The greatest challenge is how to induce younger generation to engage in agriculture using traditional methods. It would be possible to teach them to understand the great value of their heritage, but this knowledge is not a source of livelihood. Therefore, the authorities from the international to the local level should carry out the following as an incentive to the continued usage of traditional modes of environmentally benign modes of food production:
- Subsidised food production by traditional methods described above.
- On-the-job training facilities for indigenous youth under the tutelage of their own elders who are qualified to do so.
- Aid the indigenous people to establish and run cooperative units for food production and marketing the surplus. It is emphasised the indigenous people should not be deprived of their traditional food in order to earn money to buy food from the outside. This ‘great idea’ was insisted on by the world bank in West Africa compelling the governments to export peanuts to Europe for cash, which resulted in wide-spread child malnutrition there.
In conclusion, we would like to underline that the preservation of what indigenous people did, i. e., knowledge by itself is useless. What is worth preserving is how that knowledge is applied with skill, i. e., indigenous competence in food production. But competence is dynamic albeit in indigenous circles its evolution is slow compared to agriculture elsewhere. There are two reasons for it:
- Population growth is less among indigenous peoples. Hence, there is less pressure to increase yield.
- Consumerism has less influence among indigenous people, hence they are not so keen on ‘expanding their markets’, at least for now.
We may yet learn both some sound ethical values and modes of food production from indigenous people; but the least we can do is to help them to live the way they prefer by enabling them to do so without imposing on them some of our ludicrous conditions, for we have committed on them worst atrocities, plain robbery, enslavement, disenfranchisement, humiliation, just to mention some of the choice bits of our civilisation.
Best wishes!
Lal Manavado.
Sr. Lal Manavado