permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

on 1/9/02 10:05 AM, georg parlow at georg@websuxxess.com wrote:

> the harsher the situation the higher the likelihood that
> they try anything. someone who's life is at risk has an easy time
> to take risks 

I'm usually on the same wavelength as Georg, but not this time. My wife
spent some time doing aid work in Ghana, and reported the same thing I've
seen in Indonesia and Mexico: that farmers living on the edge of starvation
are incredibly reluctant to try anything new. They'd rather cling to an old,
familiar method that allows them to survive--just barely--than risk changing
to something that isn't familiar and exposes them to the risk of starving,
unless their neighbors are trying it and doing better than them, or unless
an aid worker comes in with lots of money and puts them in the high-status
position of getting foreign seed and equipment (in Ghana, this kind of
status was very important). So just proposing a new method, even if we know
it works, doesn't get acceptance. People have to have a very good reason to
change.

IMHO, it's us rich westerners who can afford to experiment with all that
weird stuff; if it doesn't work, we can just buy more food.