Reinventing Indigenous Knowledge

Indigenous farming communities in Indonesia and§around the world have probably lived the way they§always have: relying on their indigenous knowledge§and skills they learned from their parents and§neighbors. §The search for miracle seeds, begun in 1940''s, was§part of a major effort to fight world hunger. The§dwarf Mexican wheat, for example, could produce§quadruple the amount of harvest, and similarly the§miracle rice seed IR8 could produce more than double§the traditional rates of rice production, both with§application of urea. The Green Revolution quickly§replaced traditional agriculture. In fact, it§destroyed the existing sustainable system of§Indonesian agriculture and replaced it with§fuel-based agricultural system, heavily dependent on§manufactured chemicals. On the contrary, IPM trained§farmers to observe and collect field data and conduct§agro-ecological system analyses that prepared farmers§to think critically and to make smart decisions about§their crops.§This book should bring some light on valuable§discussion of the large, indeed global, problem of§food production, in the long forgotten indigenous§knowledge systems on a meaningful local level.