Learning from African knowledge and innovations:

Different countries are at different stages of economic growth and
development, but these stages have little to do with the growth of
local knowledge systems. Recently held conference of Science and
Technology Ministers and secretaries from over 40 countries debated
among other things, how can mutual learning take place to empower
local communities? The arrogance that prevents us from learning from
lower order people in our country comes in the way of learning from
less economically developed countries too.  Honey Bee Network has
trying to dilute this resistance to learn from below for over quarter
century. It was evident when ministers from Zimbabwe and Mozambique
got into an agreement with National innovation Foundation to take help
of HBN to trigger grassroots innovation movement in their countries.
Delegates from Ethiopia, Botswana, Tanzania, Tunisia, Egypt etc., also
were very keen to join forces. One message which I stressed was the
importance of learning India  will make in the process.
Let me illustrate. About ten years ago, SRISTI helped International
Fund for Agricultural Development, Rome in organizing an international
contest for grassroots innovations in 70 countries. The top award
winner was from Uganda, viz., When  a farmer AUTA GRAVETAS noticed in
Uganda that the sweet potato plants in a part of field having lantana
camara on the border did not have pests incidence, he evolved a
hypothesis. Can lantana leaves help extend the shelf life of sweet
potato slices?  Since a large number of people in that region survived
on sweet potato slices as a staple food when they could not afford
maize or paddy, the shelf-life of these slices was directly linked to
the food self provisioning.   He had an idea.   He put lantana camara
leaves in between the layers of dried slices stored for future use.
He could extend the shelf-life and food self provisioning by almost a
month and a half more.  The weed became a resource.  First prize,
given at Global Knowledge Conference  organized in Malaysia, 2002
created a benchmark of excellence in a field where formal institutions
had not been able to develop such a low cost solution to a popular
problem.    Neither lantana camara was indigenous, nor had the
knowledge been transferred by one generation to another over
centuries.   Still the way of knowing was traditional, i.e., observing
an odd phenomena, discriminating, abstracting, hypothesizing, testing
and developing a robust rule or technology.   National Innovation
Foundation (NIF) with the help of Honey Bee Network has scouted scores
of other uses of this plant which was introduced as an ornamental by
British colonial rulers in India and Africa more than 100 years ago.
Use of lantana camara as a pesticide for controlling pests resistant
to chemical pesticides in cotton can be a very powerful solution
across the world.   The constraint can become an opportunity.   This
weed has damaged large number of forest regions around the world.
The knowledge developed by an individual and/or a community over a
long period of time or in recent past at grassroots level is something
that we need to learn from.
The institutional context of such knowledge becomes evident when a
farmer like AUTA is able to experiment and a District Agriculture
Officer recognizes the merit, submits his entry for the international
competition and SRISTI is able to identify its potential and thus
contribute to its recognition by IFAD.   When further work is not done
on this technology by the Ugandan scientists or international
agencies, it shows how unwilling formal institutional system still is.
Therefore, challenge is not just to learn, but also to make layers of
institutions at different levels also to learn. Indian people can  and
will learn as much if not more than what our African brothers and
sisters will learn. The development has to become a two way street.

Anil K Gupta