ICARDA annual report 2004

Agricultural planning authorities
in CWANA have recently
shown interest in the ‘agricultural
regions’ concept. Morocco identified
31 ‘régions agricoles’ during a
similar mapping exercise, and Syria
and ICARDA are working to identify
new agroecological zones to
improve rural land-use planning
and replace the six ‘agricultural stability
zones’ currently used. In
addition, Turkey has asked
ICARDA for help in mapping
agroecological zones. These will be
used to decide which crops to promote
or subsidize in particular
regions.
Integrating conventional
land-evaluation methods
and farmers’ soil-suitability
assessments
Farmers often possess valuable
agroecological knowledge, which
they translate into informal soilclassification
and land-evaluation
systems. These are complex and
surprisingly accurate when used to
predict the productive capacity of
their land. However, farmers are
unable to exploit this knowledge
when adopting new technologies or
management practices drawn from
outside their farming system and
environment.
By contrast, researchers and
planners, often cannot fine-tune
their recommendations to local conditions
because they do not fully
understand the micro-scale variations
that occur within farmers’
environments. However, they do
have access to standardized methods
of characterization and extrapolation.
This allows them to assess
technologies developed in one area
and decide if they are likely to perform
well in other locations with
similar ecological and socioeconomic
conditions.
To exploit the comparative
strengths of these two groups,
ICARDA assessed the benefits of
participatory agroecological characterization
and the feasibility of capturing
local knowledge and integrating
it with scientific knowledge.
This involved a two-part
land-suitability assessment in the
pilot village of Karababa in northwestern
Syria.
The first part of the assessment,
a farmer-led land-suitability assessment
(FLSA), used participatory
mapping and characterization tools
such as transect walks, field visits,
individual interviews, and ranking
exercises (Fig. 26). The other part of
the assessment, an expert-led landsuitability
assessment (ELSA),
involved standard scientific methods
such as land-resource mapping
and evaluation techniques (Fig. 26).
Integrated transect analysis was
used in both parts of the study.
This combined biophysical survey
techniques with participatory
research methods and involved scientists
and farmers working together
to assess a range of land-use and
soil types. The results of both
assessments were integrated into
GIS and analyzed.
Many discrepancies were found
between the results of the two
Theme 3
assessments. These were mainly
due to the detailed local information
provided by farmers during
the FLSA. The FLSA also helped
researchers understand the impact
of microclimatic variations on crop
productivity. This is an important
benefit of the approach, since good
climatic records are not available
for most rural communities.
In an area with no major biophysical
constraints, the study
showed that land use was mainly
determined by socioeconomic conditions.
It also confirmed that farmers
have an excellent understanding
of their biophysical environment.
However, the study also
showed that useful and interesting
indigenous knowledge is now
scarce, and may be declining as a
result of urbanization. Special techniques
are, therefore, urgently
needed to record this valuable
knowledge before it is lost.
This new method could be used
to develop land-use plans and
identify the opportunities and constraints
associated with different
farming systems. It could complement
such methods as rapid and
participatory rural appraisal, which
often emphasize the socioeconomic
dimensions of farming systems
while underestimating
the importance of the
natural resource base
and its variation in
space and time. The
participatory
approach developed
by the study is now
being tested in
Morocco.
Fig. 26. Steps in farmerled
(FLSA) and expertled
(ELSA) land-suitability
assessment at
the local level.
ICARDA Annual Report 2004
57