Managing agrodiversity the traditional way docx

[...]... support, the book probably would never have seen the light of the day Therefore, we wish to register our profound gratitude to the GEF for its financial support, and to the UNU and UNEP for facilitating that support Since the inception of PLEC in West Africa, the University of Ghana has served as the management centre for work in southern Ghana and as the principal administrative node for the country In the. .. of the work of the Ghana cluster These include the only chapter, which also draws on work in Guinea, reporting a comparative study of the diversity of savanna forest in relation to different systems of management There is particular emphasis on how much the practice of resource management for development can be informed by the innovations and adaptations evolved by the farmers themselves Some of these... The chapter highlights the often unrecognized leading role of women in crop production and conservation of land-races In Ghana, rice and other starchy staples are commonly consumed together with sauces and soups prepared from vegetables Managing the diversity of vegetables for food security with special reference to southern Ghana forms the theme of Chapter 10 by Blay There are, in Ghana, various traditional. .. of the 21 chapters makes a unique contribution to the book To their authors we say a big thank you for their effort, as we do for the constructive comments of the two anonymous reviewers of the book manuscript But, above all, it is the hundreds of PLEC farmers whose knowledge forms the fundamental source of information We are profoundly grateful for their knowledge of resource management and for their... particularly during the critical final stages of the preparation of the manuscript We thank them for their patience and gentle way of prodding us on For inspiring the entire UNU/PLEC and us intellectually, we wish to place on record our profound gratitude to Emeritus Professor Harold Brookfield, the principal PLEC scientific coordinator, of the Australian National University For motivating us by their mature... work in the last three years to give them new vigour, while validating their scientific value The outstanding case is the no-burn oprowka or proka system of land preparation, introduced in Chapter 6 and the topic of two scientific studies in Chapters 11 and 14 Readers will note that the findings of these two studies are somewhat at odds, indicating the amount of work that is still to be done The Ghanaian... the importance of traditional, indigenous, or local farmer knowledge and practices in sustainable conservation of biodiversity and related natural resources by agrodiversity Agrodiversity refers to the processes and products of agricultural diversification In more elaborate terms, it is the many ways in which farmers use the natural diversity of the environment for production, including not only their... the context of the purpose and historical evolution of PLEC Oteng-Yeboah follows up in Chapter 2 with an overview of philosophies that, traditionally, underlie the use of biophysical resources with special reference to Ghana Then, in Chapter 3, Buabeng discusses traditional methods of resource assessment by farmers relative to the modern systematic methods by scientists The discussion brings home the. .. in these pages as skilled, astute, and innovative in the face of quite difficult conditions of uncertain rainfall, low and sometimes declining soil fertility, rising pressures of population on resources, and the effects of globalization on the market for their crops It has been my good fortune to visit Ghana five times during the PLEC years, usually to attend one or other of the annual workshops of the. .. demonstration sites in southern Ghana It forms a useful background to the next two chapters, by Blay and by Kranjac-Berisavljevic and Gandaa, which provide insights into diverse ways of managing and conserving the diversity of yams in demonstration sites within the ecologically contrasting semi-humid forest-savanna mosaic zone of southern Ghana and semi-arid northern savanna zone By focusing on the conservation . the views of the Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the United Nations University. Managing agrodiversity the traditional way: .