Sustainable Agriculture and Food: Four volume set (Earthscan Reference Collections)

392 Modern Agricultural Reforms

villages. In one Honduran village, Pacayas, there had been 16 innovations since
termination, including four new crops, two new green manures, two new species
of grass for contour barriers in vegetables, chicken pens made of king grass, mari-
golds for nematode control, use of lablab and velvet bean as cattle and chicken
feed, nutrient recycling into fishponds, human wastes in composting latrines,
napier grass to stabilize cliffs, and home-made sprinklers for irrigation.
Technologies had been developed, adopted, adapted and dropped. The study
concluded that the half-life of a successful technology in these project areas is 6
years. Quite clearly the technologies themselves are not sustainable. As Bunch and
López (1994) have put it ‘what needs to be made sustainable is the process of inno-
vation itself ’.
A similar picture has emerged in Gujarat, where many farmers have developed
new technical innovations after support for undertaking simple treatment meas-
ures on their own land. Farmers have introduced planting of grafted mango trees
and bamboo near embankments, so making full use of residual moisture near gully
traps. They have also introduced cultivation of vegetables, such as brinjal and lady’s
finger, other leguminous crops and tobacco in the newly created silt traps. This has
increased production substantially, particularly in poor rainfall years, as well as
diversifying production. Most of these innovations and adaptations have been

Table 16.3 Changes in adoption of resource-conserving technologies, maize yields and

migration patterns in three programmes in Central America during and after projects

At initiation At termination In 1994

No. of farmers with technologies (and no. of villages with technology)

Contour grass barriers (12)

Contour drainage ditches (12)

Contour rows (6)

Green manures (7)

Crop rotations (8)

No burning fields or forests (7)

Organic matter as fertilizer (8)

1

1

0

0

12

2

44

192

253

100

35

209

160

195

280

239

245

52

254

235

397

Yields of maize (kg ha–1)

San Martin

Guinope

Cantarranas

400

600

660

2500

2400

2000

4500

2730

2050

Migration

San Martin

San Antonio Correjo

Las Venturas

Guinope: 3 villages

Cantarranas: 3 villages

65

85

38

nd

nd

nd

0

10

4

4

(2)

(6)

Note: 12 villages sampled from the total of 121 in the three programme areas; (2) and (6)
indicate in-migration of families; nd = no data.
Source: Bunch and López, 1994