Editorial Introduction to Volume IV 9rice farmers spray insecticides based on their perceptions of potential damage and
losses caused by pests. Farmers generally overestimate the seriousness of leaf dam-
age caused by a variety of leaf-feeding insects, and so start applying insecticides. Yet
damage to the rice crop during the vegetative stage rarely affects yields, even if as
much as 40 per cent of a leaf is consumed. Early applications of insecticide are
therefore unnecessary. This paper describes the testing and spreading of a simple
heuristic or rule of thumb to Vietnamese farmers in the Mekong Delta: ‘Spraying
insecticides for leaf folder control in the first 40 days after sowing is not needed.’
A wide range of communication media were used to spread this simple message.
Two and half years after the media introduction, insecticide sprays had fallen from
3.4 to 1.6 per season, saving farmers both insecticide and labour costs. The prac-
tice was then spread to 200,000 farmers in Long An, and then to the whole Mekong
Delta of 2 million farmers.
The slow adoption of conservation farming systems in the uplands of the Phil-
ippines is the focus of the third paper by Rob Cramb and Z. Culasero. Agricultural
degradation in the densely populated, steeply sloping regions has long been recog-
nized as a major environmental problem, with significant on- and off-site impacts.
A variety of effective conservation farming methods based on contour hedgerows
of shrub legumes had been developed, yet sustained uptake by farmers was limited.
This paper focuses on the potential of the landcare approach to develop new forms
of collective action at the local levels. Landcare centres on the formation of com-
munity groups, supported by varying degrees through partnerships with govern-
ment and non-government agencies. The paper specifically reports on the impacts
of such an institution-building approach in southern Mindanao. The main effect
of the programme was to enhance human capital through practical, farmer-led
training and extension, enabling farmers to incorporate soil conservation and
agroforestry technologies into their farming systems. The social capital formed,
especially through the landcare associations, was critical to these outcomes. Strong
partnerships will be required in future if such progress is to be sustained, and then
spread to other communities.
Wendell Berry is one of the best known writers on agrarian pasts and presents
in North America. He is a practising farmer, poet and author of many books. In
this excerpt from his 1976 book, The Unsettling of America, he tells the story of the
change in culture and agriculture in a few short generations of frontier invasion,
spread and modernization. America was not settled, but unsettled, and it resulted
in the exploitation of the land and its people. It ultimately, too, undermined the
environmental security and health of the settlers. The production treadmill based
on competition and degradation resulted in the loss of family farmers from the
land – a process that has continued at a faster pace since the writing of this chapter
in the 1970s. As he says, ‘the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy
and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility’. To cherish what remains of it, and
to foster renewal, is our only legitimate hope.
Education in agroecology, agricultural systems and sustainable agriculture can
provide students with a broad curriculum that deals with the interaction among