Product Description

The interest and support that the "Farmer First" philosophy has received has led to a virtual revolution in the agricultural sciences. While many hail this populist perspective as a step in the right direction, some have argued that it fails to capture the complex cultural, social and political dimensions of knowledge creation, innovation, transmission and application within rural societies and scientific organizations. Because they do not adequately address these fundamental issues of power and knowledge, critics charge that some "Farmer First" initiatives encounter many of the same problems as conventional transfer of technology strategies. The purpose of "Beyond Farmer First" is to reveal how agricultural research and extension, far from being discrete, rational acts, are in fact part of a process of coming to terms with conflicting interests and viewpoints, a process in which choices are made, alliances formed, exclusions effected and worldviews imposed. By going beyond "Farmer First", this theoretically informed perspective describes agricultural development as what it is: a highly ideological and political process. As Robert Chambers notes in his foreword, the concerns of "Farmer First" with performance and "Beyond Farmer First" with process indicate that a radical rethinking of knowledge, power and agricultural science is well under way. This book consists of some 36 contributions representing the disciplines of agronomy, agricultural science, anthropology, ecology, entomology, forestry, geography, management science, pedagogy, sociology and others. Contributors are drawn from academia, local NGOs and national and international research and development agencies, with detailed case material from Africa, Australia, Central and South America and Europe.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #872567 in Books
• Published on: 1994-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages