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Folk experiments

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  • Jeffery Bentley

Abstract

Folk experiments in agriculture are often inspired by new ideas blended with old ones, motivated by economic and environmental change. They tend to save labor or capital. These notions are illustrated with nine short case studies from Nicaragua and El Salvador. The new ideas that catalyze folk experiments may be provided by development agencies, but paradoxically, the folk experiments are so common that the agencies that inspire them usually pay little attention to them. Some folk experiments are original, but others simply copy innovations that farmers have seen somewhere else. Unlike formal scientific research, in which results are consistently written, folk experiments are rarely “inscribed,” because the results are for use by individual farmers and need not be shared with an audience. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

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  • Jeffery Bentley, 2006. "Folk experiments," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 23(4), pages 451-462, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:23:y:2006:i:4:p:451-462
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-006-9017-1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bin Wu & Jules Pretty, 2004. "Social connectedness in marginal rural China: The case of farmer innovation circles in Zhidan, north Shaanxi," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 21(1), pages 81-92, March.
    2. Fergus Lyon, 1996. "How farmers research and learn: The case of arable farmers of East Anglia, UK," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 13(4), pages 39-47, September.
    3. Mak, S., 2001. "Continued innovation in a Cambodian rice-based farming system: farmer testing and recombination of new elements," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 69(1-2), pages 137-149.
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    1. Tambo, Justice A. & Wünscher, Tobias, 2016. "Beyond adoption: welfare effects of farmer innovation behavior in Ghana," Discussion Papers 235297, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    2. Kris Wyckhuys & Robert O’Neil, 2010. "Social and ecological facets of pest management in Honduran subsistence agriculture: implications for IPM extension and natural resource management," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 297-311, June.
    3. Tambo, Justice & Wunscher, Tobias, 2015. "Beyond adoption: the welfare effects of farmer innovation in rural Ghana," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211682, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Steven McGreevy, 2012. "Lost in translation: incomer organic farmers, local knowledge, and the revitalization of upland Japanese hamlets," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 29(3), pages 393-412, September.

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