Re: Avery/Benbrook Debate and the Tropics
Donald Voth (dvoth@comp.uark.edu)
Wed, 30 Aug 1995 15:16:24 -0500 (CDT)
I want to thank Dennis Shannon again for his discussionn of sub-tropical
African soils. I have only two qualifications to what Shannon said.
First, in the areas where I have a little bit of experience, Rwanda and
Burundi, there is a historical pattern of integrating animals into
farming systems, even cattle. There are complicated cultural
implications of this, implications that are not unrelated to the current
violence in these countries. However, for this discussion that is not
relevant. The point is that the value of animal manure is appreciated,
that it is used, but mostly for the highest valued food crops right
around the dwelling (partly because of theft). When we were doing
surveys and asked for the reason for having animals, manure was
frequently given as the first reason. My second qualification concerns
alley cropping. We did find some versions of alley cropping very
beneficial, but we found the rigidity of most alley cropping advocates to
be a serious detriment to acceptance. Farmers simply would not,
initially, divide their fields into 4-5 meter strips, but they certainly
would consider using the recommended hedges at the borders. Much as we
tried, we almost always failed to get the scientists who advocate alley
cropping to be willing to consider, conceptually at least, taking alley
cropping apart, and looking at its various potential contributions
(nitrogen fixing, provision of organic matter, soil erosion control,
provision of bean poles, etc.) separately, and trying to design
applications that farmers actually could implement in a progressive
manner. And, this was a Farming Systems Research and Extension (FSR/E)
project!