Social science research and conservation management in the ...

Indah Setyawati
else in Apau Ping had, asked another farmer to plant it for her, just enough to renew
the seeds for the next season, so that she would have ‘live seeds’ when she returns.
She said that, on several occasions, she had to ask other farmers to plant it for her
because she had no suitable swampy land available. Another year, a farmer who had
access to a swampy area borrowed seeds of that variety from her, but she would make
sure to get her seeds back. So, a rare variety might be planted by different farmers in
successive years.
As can be seen from the descriptions above, many factors affect the occurrence
and loss of rice varieties. Apau Ping farmers themselves, with their ideas and intentions,
are the main agents in selecting and maintaining a rice variety. Although
environmental conditions certainly influence their decisions about planting that variety
or not, I regard attention to farmers’ individual experiences with different varieties
as the key to understanding the fate of those varieties in Apau Ping.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
I have described various ways and reasons for Apau Ping farmers to acquire and spread
knowledge and seeds of rice varieties. In order to secure food supply in an uncertain
farming environment—unpredictable weather, variable soil fertility and other soil
properties—farmers need sufficient agricultural knowledge, not only of land or soil
conditions, but also of varieties that can be planted under such conditions. That planting
several varieties contributes to curbing the risk of total harvest failure accounts for
the high number of varieties present. However, in selecting varieties, most farmers
ponder subjective factors, like personal taste, along with more objective ones, like
easy milling.
Farmers construct their individual knowledge by way of experimentation,
exchange of information, and careful observation of one another’s crops, carried
out on almost all occasions, most of which are culturally or socially provided for
them to gain and transmit this knowledge of varieties. As this knowledge is subject
to change, not all farmers within a village have the same knowledge and information,
and their individual curiosity and capability, related to age and farming
experience, in updating their knowledge becomes important.
Some researchers have suggested making farmers agents in local germplasm
conservation (Vaughan and Chang 1992). In fact, that farmers have such great interest
in looking at, experimenting with, and adopting new rice varieties might work against
conserving ‘local, rare, and indigenous’ varieties. Although many factors, including
natural selection, are involved, the farmers’ possible bias in favour of new varieties
should be taken into account in planning programs for germplasm conservation and,
while they certainly should participate in such programs, there should also be a
monitoring of local varieties by rice experts or breeders.
There is no doubt that farming experience and experimentation are sources for
the farmers’ knowledge of existing varieties and provide bases for our explanations
of what they do in their fields. However, most of what they do is not just part of a
fixed plan or design, but rather action is continually adjusted to particular, changing
environmental conditions and may be performed in such an ad hoc, chance, or
opportunistic fashion that we can find no simple general explanations of observed
practices.
The data presented here comes mostly from interviews and it is clear that
further studies to procure observational data are needed for discerning what farmers
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