Survival under Stress: Socio Ecological Perspective on Farmers Innovation and Risk Adjustments

Need for closer interactions between natural scientists and farmers to generate relevant technologies is being increasingly recognised. The uniformity of ecological endowment and its correspondence with conditions at research station did not call for reorientation of research strategy for irrigated regions. However, in rainfed regions, we argue in this paper, there is a need to understand farmers’ adjustment with risks as well as their experimental ethic. Drawing upon Chinese knowledge dating back to First century B.C., recent evidence from Bangladesh and India, it is suggested that natural scientists should initiate systematic documentation and experimentation on farmers’ own knowledge system. It might on one hand expand the frontier of natural sciences and on the other make value addition in local knowledge possible. Knowledge generating systems in high risk rural areas should not be converted into just knowledge receiving system. Further, transfer of science rather than only technology to people should be emphasized in future so that formal and informal R&D can reinforce each other.