Resource information
The note examines the transfer of
knowledge from one generation to the next, and from country
to country, through trading ties, and social interactions
which has raised knowledge sharing activities within Africa,
and elsewhere. Such activities have reinforced the
universality of indigenous knowledge, and, despite
geographical differences, the note looks at the Sodic Lands
Reclamation Project in India, as a good example of
integration of traditional knowledge into Bank-supported
operations. The first challenge the project presented was
the treatment of high build-up of salts in the fields, with
high concentrations of exchangeable sodium in which finer
soil particles are dispersed, but where water and air cannot
penetrate. These sodic soils are toxic to plants, and
adversely affect agriculture, human, and plant health. The
application of traditional knowledge, i.e., spreading
gypsum, building bunds, leaching the soil, starting
multi-cropping, green manuring and crop rotation, as well as
using compost and plowing the land, maintained a continuous
ground cover, through intensive cropping, which protected
the soils from a return of surface salts. The result was a
substantive reduction in the damage caused by brown plant
hoppers from 49 percent down to 2 percent. This was
conducive to innovative strategies, drawing upon indigenous
resources, and knowledge about agricultural practices,
practices institutionalized by the formation of a Farmers
Field School, community participation in irrigation, and
training provided to women through the farmers school in
agricultural practices.
