World Ark Magazine - March/April 2008 - (Page 31) 8 9 10 1 1 12 2 Talk to the people who have the problem and listen to what they have to say. In the 1990s, agriculture experts in Bangladesh were dismayed that small-acreage farmers were applying only a tiny fraction of the fertilizer that their rice crops needed, even though they could triple what they had invested in fertilizer from the increased rice yields. The experts complained about the irrational and superstitious behavior of small-acreage farmers, and set up extension programs and farmer-training programs. But the farmers continued to apply only a fraction of the fertilizer that their rice needed to thrive. Finally, somebody asked some farmers why they were using so little fertilizer. talk 3 “Oh, that’s easy,” they said. “Every 10 years or so, there is a major flood during the monsoon season that carries away all the fertilizer we apply. So we only apply the amount of fertilizer we can afford to lose in a 10-year flood.” Suddenly it became clear that the farmers were excellent, rational decision makers and that it was the agriculture experts who had a lot to learn. With very good reason, subsistence farmers care much more about avoiding losing their farm than they do about tripling their income. Learn everything you can about the problem’s specific context. After a great deal of success in Bangladesh with one irrigation invention, the treadle pump, many people now ask me if they could use treadle pumps to help farmers in other countries. “How deep is the water table in your village?” I ask, because a treadle pump is a suction pump that simply won’t lift water more than about 27 feet. “I don’t know” is the most common answer. “Tie a rock on the end of a piece of string, go to the nearest well, and measure how deep the water table is,” I say. “Or go to the government ministry of water resources—they likely have maps with that kind of information.” The fact is you can’t make practical plans unless you gather a lot of details about each specific village context. What kind of high-value crops you can grow in each depends on the type of soil and the climate. The price of fruits and vegetables is usually highest at the time of year when it’s most difficult to grow them, so it’s important to know why these crops are difficult to grow at that time of year and what can be done to overcome the difficulty. learn www.heifer.org March/April 2008 | WORLD ARK 31 http://www.heifer.org
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