Knowledge systems for Agro-ecological interventions

1.     Knowledge Systems

There is an agricultural community in the groundnut basin area of Kaolack in Senegal. This region is characterized by a very diversified agricultural activity in animal and vegetable products. The plant species grown in this region are mainly peanut millet maize sorghum, cowpea and are grown during the most season that lasts an average of three months (July August September). The breeding activity is to let the animals wander. These are sheep, cattle, equine goats and poultry. This region is characterized by a semi arid climate.

The Kaolack region is characterized by the localized presence of shrub species; Piliostigma reticulatum (Nguiguis in Wolof) and Faidherbia albida (Cad in Wolof). Two native shrubs species commonly found in peasant fields.

Faidherbia albida has a unique compatibility with cropping systems due to its ‘reverse leaf phenology’. It is dormant during the wet season and drops its leaves. Its leaves only grow during the dry season, people eat the seeds. The leaves and pods are palatable to domestic animals. Some farmer’s note that when they cultivate their crops in Faidherbia albida area their maize yields are increased.

Piliostigma is found in farmers' fields where they are traditionally cut and burned. The farmers have noticed that near the shrubs there is always humidity. Crops such as millet have good growth and yield in the vicinity of this shrub.

2.     Agro-ecological approches

Indigenous peoples have traditional agricultural knowledge that takes into account interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment. It also includes sociological and economic factors because harvesting products are often sold or bartered in local weekly markets (LOUMA) where marriage relationships between people of different ethnicities are sometimes woven together.

3.     Epistemology

The farmers have practical knowledge that integrates the hazard, which appears as the pivot of the thought of these farmers over the seasons and not as an obstacle to their understanding of the environment. There is a local character of ecological knowledge. Farmers know that fields containing these two types of plants have a higher yield than fields that do not. This knowledge comes from an observation. It is therefore a lived experience. These are empirical knowledge, born of an ingrained experience and circumscribed to a place and society

4.     Ontology

It is a real practical knowledge that always leads to the same result. The peasants have been using it for a very long time. The management of this knowledge has made it possible to describe and organize it in order to design these cropping systems.

5.     Interventions, and how they were approached

The production and circulation of knowledge is built in the action itself and in the interactions between farmers, or between farmers and advisers or researchers. A circulation mediated and organized by other actors. It's about educating farmers about the benefits of  having these types of plants in their fields. Radio awareness campaigns.

As a result, local knowledge is constantly changing according to social practices, such as conversation, work or social relations.

It is also a question of recognizing or having recognized the knowledge production work but also the agricultural models of those who produced this knowledge; to benefit others facing similar situations; to keep their memory as technical or cultural capital.