136
the promotion of varieties developed using the tricot approach. Also, variety release
procedures could benefit from scaled on-farm testing using the tricot approach.
How does this work contribute to Climate-Smart Agriculture? Climate-Smart
Agriculture means different things to different people (Chandra et al. 2018). The
smartness in our approach does not come through technical prioritisation exercises
that guide investments towards certain “climate-smart” agricultural practices that
are guaranteed to confer climate-related benefits. We have serious doubts about this
approach. The Green Revolution settled on seeds largely because more knowledgeintensive approaches were more difficult to realise in the absence of well-developed
extension systems (Fitzgerald 1986; Harwood 2009). As a result, “smartness” had
be put into scientifically-bred seeds as the vehicles that would reach farms. Farmers
would not need to learn, they simply had to start using the new seeds. This worked,
but it worked best where the ground was already prepared, in production areas that
most resembled modern temperate-climate agriculture, where agriculture was commercial in outlook, used high levels of inputs or irrigation water, and worked in relatively homogeneous environments (Fitzgerald 1986). Mechanisation and increased
use of bulky fossil inputs characterised these farming systems, rather than knowledge intensification.
In our approach, which focuses specifically on marginal areas, we do not pretend
that agricultural science can inject smartness into farming using seeds or other
“climate- smart” technologies as the vehicle. “Climate-smart technologies” do not
exist literally, if at all. It is subject to the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. In the
end, smartness is about how people do things, how farmers are involved in constantly assessing the local appropriateness of technologies, how farmers, extension
agents and researchers create new linkages that enhance information generation and
exchange, and how these different ways of doing are then leading to new types of
knowledge, seeds, and technologies. These end products may symbolise people’s
collective smartness, but do not replace it. The desired smartness (or better, wisdom) emerges as a systemic property of reconfigured seed and knowledge systems
in which knowledge and technology is generated and exchanged in ways that are in
pace with accelerated climate and socio-economic change, more equitable, and
more attentive to environmental and social diversity and needs.
References
Abay F, Bjørnstad A (2009) Specific adaptation of barley varieties in different locations in Ethiopia.
Euphytica 167(2):181–195. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-008-9858-3
Badstue ALB, Hellin J, Berthaud J (2012) Re-orienting participatory plant breeding for wider
impact. Afr J Agric Res 7(4):523–533
Beza E, Steinke J, van Etten J et al (2017) What are the prospects for large-N citizen science
in agriculture? Evidence from three continents on motivation and mobile telephone use of
resource-poor farmers participating in “tricot” crop research trials. PLoS One 12(5):e0175700
Cabell JF, Oelofse M (2012) An indicator framework for assessing agroecosystem resilience. Ecol
Soc 17(1):18. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04666-170118
C. Fadda and J. Etten
the promotion of varieties developed using the tricot approach. Also, variety release
procedures could benefit from scaled on-farm testing using the tricot approach.
How does this work contribute to Climate-Smart Agriculture? Climate-Smart
Agriculture means different things to different people (Chandra et al. 2018). The
smartness in our approach does not come through technical prioritisation exercises
that guide investments towards certain “climate-smart” agricultural practices that
are guaranteed to confer climate-related benefits. We have serious doubts about this
approach. The Green Revolution settled on seeds largely because more knowledgeintensive approaches were more difficult to realise in the absence of well-developed
extension systems (Fitzgerald 1986; Harwood 2009). As a result, “smartness” had
be put into scientifically-bred seeds as the vehicles that would reach farms. Farmers
would not need to learn, they simply had to start using the new seeds. This worked,
but it worked best where the ground was already prepared, in production areas that
most resembled modern temperate-climate agriculture, where agriculture was commercial in outlook, used high levels of inputs or irrigation water, and worked in relatively homogeneous environments (Fitzgerald 1986). Mechanisation and increased
use of bulky fossil inputs characterised these farming systems, rather than knowledge intensification.
In our approach, which focuses specifically on marginal areas, we do not pretend
that agricultural science can inject smartness into farming using seeds or other
“climate- smart” technologies as the vehicle. “Climate-smart technologies” do not
exist literally, if at all. It is subject to the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. In the
end, smartness is about how people do things, how farmers are involved in constantly assessing the local appropriateness of technologies, how farmers, extension
agents and researchers create new linkages that enhance information generation and
exchange, and how these different ways of doing are then leading to new types of
knowledge, seeds, and technologies. These end products may symbolise people’s
collective smartness, but do not replace it. The desired smartness (or better, wisdom) emerges as a systemic property of reconfigured seed and knowledge systems
in which knowledge and technology is generated and exchanged in ways that are in
pace with accelerated climate and socio-economic change, more equitable, and
more attentive to environmental and social diversity and needs.
References
Abay F, Bjørnstad A (2009) Specific adaptation of barley varieties in different locations in Ethiopia.
Euphytica 167(2):181–195. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-008-9858-3
Badstue ALB, Hellin J, Berthaud J (2012) Re-orienting participatory plant breeding for wider
impact. Afr J Agric Res 7(4):523–533
Beza E, Steinke J, van Etten J et al (2017) What are the prospects for large-N citizen science
in agriculture? Evidence from three continents on motivation and mobile telephone use of
resource-poor farmers participating in “tricot” crop research trials. PLoS One 12(5):e0175700
Cabell JF, Oelofse M (2012) An indicator framework for assessing agroecosystem resilience. Ecol
Soc 17(1):18. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04666-170118
C. Fadda and J. Etten