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Swimming
against the tide:
Integrating biological
and social science |
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“Of all the CGIAR
centers
that I have worked with,
CIP demonstrates by far
the
closest integration of
the
social and the biological
sciences”
G. Edward Schuh, Chair,
CIP External Program and
Management Review, 2002 |
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In what was a radical proposal
in 1978, CIP’s social
scientists tried to convince
a skeptical audience of biological
scientists that technology development
must go beyond simply addressing
the biological constraints that
limit food production to consider
the social context in which
agriculture takes place. First
and foremost, they argued, this
meant understanding and working
with farmers, who they saw as
innovators conditioned by social,
cultural, and economic factors,
as well as by their physical
environment. That particular
point of view contrasted with
the predominant thinking then
guiding CGIAR research, according
to which centers were seen as
the major source of innovation,
producing technologies that
were passed down to farmers
through national research and
extension programs.
“At the time, most CGIAR
research was conditioned by
notions that undervalued farmers’
capacities and idealized the
production of finished technologies,”
says anthropologist Gordon Prain.
“In this way of thinking,
farmers occupied the fields
of tradition, while high-tech
laboratories and experimental
stations represented modernity.” |
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Placing the focus on technology
was difficult to resist. The
Green Revolution was at its
height and its results seemed
almost miraculous. Even so,
problems were emerging that
raised important questions about
the effects of technology on
the environment and health,
and the extent to which it was
reaching poorer farmers who
worked in complex, marginal
farming systems.
Prain credits CIP’s founding
Director General Richard Sawyer—a
powerful exponent of traditional
biological science—and
Gelia Castillo—the Center’s
first female board member and
a rural sociologist—with
the institutionalization of
interdisciplinary methods at
CIP. “Sawyer and Castillo
were swimming against the tide,”
Prain says, “a fact that
was evident in the Center’s
1975 external program and management
review which cautioned against
using “core” resources
to support noneconomist social
science positions.” Nevertheless,
with Sawyer and Castillo’s
backing, CIP social sciences
department head Douglas Horton
was able to establish an eclectic
mix of social science disciplines
and methods within the Center’s
research program during the
1980s.
Farmer back to farmer
The first formal expression
of CIP’s new approach
to the social sciences was the
farmer-back-to-farmer (FBF)
model developed by an anthropologist
and a plant physiologist. The
model holds that research begins
and ends with the farmer and
the community and, of necessity,
involves an interdisciplinary
focus. Within the FBF philosophy,
research and technology transfer
were seen as parallel activities
rather than as sequential steps
in which responsibilities were
handed off from agency to agency
as a technology moved through
the so-called development pipeline.
 |
EL CIENTÍFICO SOCIAL THOMAS WALKER
INTERCAMBIA
OPINIONES CON EL
FITOGENETISTA JUAN LANDEO Y LOS
AGRICULTORES DURANTE UNA JORNADA
DE CAMPO EN
HUÁNUCO, PERÚ,
ORGANIZADA PARA CELEBRAR EL
LANZAMIENTO DE LA VARIEDAD
DE PAPA AMARILIS. |
Prain recalls that the FBF model
grew out of work in the high
Andes on potato management practices
designed to reduce postharvest
losses. In the early 1970s the
Center’s postharvest specialists,
all of whom were trained in
industrialized countries, recommended
the purchase of solar dehydration
machines, so-called “black
box” drying units, to
improve traditional processing
of potato products. CIP social
scientists, however, determined
that farmers were unlikely to
adopt the technology if it involved
additional cost. Farmers reported
that their most important constraint
following the harvest was the
time required to peel potatoes
for processing. In short, what
they needed was better peeling
equipment, not black box dryers.
Research on storage issues provided
similar results. While the initial
focus of CIP’s postharvest
research was on reducing storage
losses of potatoes headed for
the consumer market, surveys
by CIP anthropologists showed
that seed deterioration was
a far more urgent problem. The
solution that emerged was diffused-light
seed storage, which contributes
to slower, sturdier sprout growth
and toughening of the skin of
the tuber. The inexpensive construction
of household stores or the adaptation
of existing spaces within the
home led to significant reduction
in losses and improvements in
seed quality.
The lessons learned: farmers’
involvement shortens the time
needed to evaluate and eliminate
unacceptable technologies that
are not suited to the social
context in which they live and
operate, and farmer innovation
improves adaptation to local
conditions.
A geneticist's point of view
The FBF approach provided the
first decisive example of how
the social sciences could be
integrated into and even help
shape CIP’s research portfolio.
“Today, the social sciences
are a basic part of how CIP
plans, conducts, and evaluates
its science,” says plant
breeder Meredith Bonierbale,
who heads up the Center’s
crop improvement and genetic
resources program. She points
out that the Center’s
economists and anthropologists
provide perspectives that help
biological researchers to make
better decisions and establish
boundaries for priority setting.
“Because of social science
involvement in technical research
at CIP, our biological scientists
are working earlier with farmers
than they might ordinarily.
The result is that we can target
resources more effectively and
are far more likely to produce
successful technologies,”
she says.
For example, in the Center’s
breeding program the perspective
provided by social scientists
greatly improves the chances
of producing varieties that
not only are suited to local
conditions and constraints,
but will also respond to farmers’
particular circumstances and
to the demands of the marketplace.
“What we’re trying
to avoid is having a backlog
of technologies on the shelf
and the added expense of then
finding ways of getting them
out into the world,” Bonierbale
says. Interaction between the
disciplines, and especially
with farmers, Bonierbale says,
also optimizes the time and
resources of individuals with
different but complementary
points of view. In this way
research products become collective
outputs of scientists and farmers,
and stand a better chance of
succeeding.
New interdisciplinary experiences
In recent years CIP has worked
hard to incorporate farmers
into mainstream research through
farmer field schools. This program,
spearheaded by a social scientist
specialized in extension, has
been successful in advancing
farmer selection of late-blight-resistant
potatoes, integrated pest management,
and sustainable urban agriculture.
Bonierbale notes that the field
school methodology—developed
by the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization for use with rice
farmers—was first adapted
to root and tuber crops by biological
scientists working in Asia and
was later championed at CIP
headquarters by a plant pathologist.
In a similar vein, the Center’s
postharvest team of biologists
and social scientists is using
the concept of “positioning”
products in the marketplace
to safeguard biodiversity and
reduce rural poverty. By creating
product development models that
link subsistence farmers to
potential markets, they hope
to improve rural livelihoods
and at the same time contribute
to conserving the diversity
of traditional root and tuber
crops by giving farmers an added
incentive to grow them.
“The 2002 external
program and management review,”
Bonierbale concludes, “was
right to recognize CIP’s
integration of the biological
and social sciences. At many
research institutions the social
sciences are considered to be
a service activity; at CIP they
are part of the mainstream,
an irreplaceable part that we
would not want to do without.”
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