preservation of traditional management practices at...
TRANSCRIPT
Master en Estudios Ambientales
Especialidad de Medio Natural
Módulos de investigación: 40436, 40437, 40438
Instituto de Ciencia y Tecología Ambiental (ICTA)
UAB
Preservation of Traditional Management Practices at
Homegardens in Central Asturias: A Comparison between
Local and Migrant Farmers
HUMAN ECOLOGY JOURNAL
Directora de Investigación: Dra. Victoria Reyes García
Grupo de Investigación Laboratorio de Etnoecología ICTA
MIGUEL GERARDO OCHOA TOVAR
Septiembre, 2008
DESCRIPCIÓN DE LAS TARÉAS REALIZADAS
El presente trabajo se realizó dentro del laboratorio de Etnoecología del Instituto de Ciencia
y Tecnología Ambiental (ICTA) de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. Podría dividir
el trabajo en tres fases principales. La primera fase, consistió, por una parte en realizar
investigación bibliográfica y por otra en la participación y asistencia a cursos, talleres y
pláticas relacionados con tópicos referentes a las Ciencias Sociales que sirvieron como base
al marco teórico y metodológico de mi trabajo. La segunda fase consistió directamente en
el trabajo de campo, en la que colabore con la Universidad de Oviedo en apoyo a una
estudiante de doctorado en la realización de entrevistas estructuradas y semi-estructuradas a
hortelanos en la zona central de Asturias, durante los meses de Junio a Agosto de 2008,
como parte del proyecto “Huertos en la Península Ibérica”. Esta colaboración permitió la
obtención de datos para este trabajo. Finalmente, la tercera fase consistió en el análisis de
datos y estructuración del trabajo escrito.
El proyecto “Huertos en la Península Ibérica”, del cual forma parte mi investigación, es un
proyecto multi-disciplinario que integra la participación multi-institucional en tres distintas
áreas de la Península Ibérica, como lo son Los Pirineos Catalanes, La Sierra Norte de
Madrid y la Cuenca de río Nalón en Asturias. El Objetivo principal de este proyecto es:
Estudiar la importancia de los huertos domésticos en 1) la conservación de la biodiversidad
y, en particular, de la agrobiodiversidad, y 2) la preservación, la transmisión, y la
innovación del saber popular sobre plantas.
Dentro de este marco, mi investigación consistió específicamente en evaluar las similitudes
y diferencias en el uso de prácticas de manejo tradicional en los huertos caseros entre
hortelanos locales e inmigrantes (considerando a inmigrantes tanto a extranjeros como a
nacionales procedentes de otras comunidades autónomas) para evaluar el efecto de los
movimientos migratorios sobre el medio ambiente local y establecer si los hortelanos
locales e inmigrantes hacen uso un uso del ambiente de forma diferente como una primera
aproximación en el entendimiento de la importancia de las técnicas de agricultura
tradicionales para la conservación in situ de los recursos fitogéneticos.
Preservation of Traditional Management Practices at Homegardens in Central
Asturias: A Comparison between Local and Migrant Farmers
Ochoa-Tovar Miguel Gerardo
ABSTRACT
On-farm conservation of plant genetic resources is mainly practiced on small farms
considering the traditional knowledge and practical skills of the farmers. The aim of this
paper is to study the differences and similarities between local and migrant farmers for
homegardens management in Central Asturias (Spain). During July and August (2008), in
56 homegardens belonging to 41 informants, interviews were carried to construct a list of
currently used traditional management practices and rate their importance. Similarities were
tested with categorical principal component analysis. Data shows no differences between
farmers, with the exception of the manual control of plants´ plagues and diseases. This
study suggests an adoption of local practices is given by migrant farmers as an adaptive
response to ecological, economic and social factors. More ethnobiology studies are need in
European homegardens for further improve our understanding of the importance of the folk
traditional knowledge in the PGRs and cultural preservation.
INTRODUCTION
Plant genetic resources (PGR), defined here as the plants or parts of plants which are
capable of generative or vegetative propagation with actual or potential value and include
landraces, wild relatives, and special genetic stocks that have been developed by farmers
over generations are important for agricultural development and sustainable production
(FAO 1994). PGR support food security of several livelihoods around the world and
contribute to environment protection. Many of the currently available PGRs have been the
result of conscious or unconscious human interventions (Vellvé 1992). Farmer’s selection
has created new and improved crops (i.e., more productive, or adapted to local climate, soil,
landscape, and traditions) (Dhillon et al. 2004). The importance of conservation of
agricultural PGRs, or agrobiodiversity, for future global food security is to guarantee the
availability of biodiversity for farmers, breeders, and researchers. But for effective genetic
conservation, the preservation of cultural systems that created the PGRs is as important as
the conservation on agricultural resources. Farmers´ knowledge and skills are important for
conservation because domesticated crops were shaped by traditional knowledge and their
uses within these systems, and they can only evolve within them (King & Eyzaguirre
1999).
There are two approaches of PGR conservation: ex-situ and in-situ conservation. Ex-situ
conservation consists in the storage of genetic resources outside their natural habitat, in
identified gene banks (Dhillon et al. 2004). Although the approach might help in
preserving endangered species, for example, the approach has several shortcomings. For
example, genetic resources conserved ex-situ remains static, without further interactions
with the different elements of their environment. Furthermore, ex-situ conservation is only
adequate for genetic resources, not for ecosystems or natural habitats. In contrast, in situ
conservation consists in the maintenance of species’ populations in their natural
surroundings, whether as an uncultivated plant or as part of farmers´ fields (Maxted et al.
1997), and thus involves not only the conservation of genetic resources, but also the
conservation of ecosystems and natural habitats In-situ conservation involves a) the active
and long-term conservation of natural wild populations by the location, management, and
monitoring of their genetic diversity (Hawkes et al. 2002), and b) on-farm conservation,
characterized for the sustainable management of the genetic diversity of locally developed
traditional crop varieties along with associated wild and weedy species or forms within
traditional agricultural, horticultural or agri-silvicultural cultivation systems. Furthermore,
in-situ conservation considers the traditional knowledge and practical skills of the farmers
as an integral element of the conservation effort (Long et al. 2000). Briefly, although ex-
situ and in-situ conservation can be considered complementary approaches for conservation
of agricultural diversity, in-situ conservation has the advantage to provide a natural
laboratory for evolution processes to gradually continue with the fostering of new and more
adapted species increasing diversity through social requirements and ecogeographical
adaptation.
In Europe, as elsewhere, on-farm, or in situ, conservation of PGRs is mainly practiced on
small farms traditionally growing landraces or commercially obsolete cultivars (Stehno
2006). Several studies have shown the importance of homegardens in on-farm conservation
of PGRs (e.g. Birol et al. 2005; Gauchan et al. 2005; Maxted et al. 2002; Negri et al. 2000;
Negri and Tosti 2002) and in the social dynamics related to the transmission of knowledge
related to PGRs (e.g. Atran et al. 2002; Vogl et al. 2002; Vogl and Vogl-Lukasser 2003).
Moreover, the European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR
2007) has noticed the richness of agricultural diversity specifically remaining in European
homegardens. According to the ECPGR, the diversity of crop genetic resources in
European homegardens is higher than expected. But nowadays homegardens in Europe are
a very fragile type of agro-ecosystems. New opportunities, such as the widespread
availability of commercial species, and constraints such as the increasing age of farmers,
the lack of willingness of the new generations to adopt the older farming systems and crops,
or the arrival of new populations to rural areas negatively influence the on-farm
conservation of PGR in Europe (Stehno 2006).
Most previous research on homegardens has focused on the gardens of farmers that have
lived a long time in the studied area (e.g. Caballero 1992; Stuart 1993; Hetterschijt 2001;
Vogl and Vogl-Lukasser 2003; Das and Kumar Das 2005), thus generating information on
the management and composition of homegardens from communities with long experience
with their local environment (Vogl et al. 2002). Despite the worldwide importance of
migration and its potential impact for the ecosystem, few studies focus on migrants or on
populations cultivators without traditional experience with the site-specific management of
the new inhabited area (Kleinman et al. 1995). Furthermore, the scant research in the topic
provides contradictory findings. Some researchers have found that, many decades after
migration, descendants from migrant populations behave differently in the same physical
environment than groups with long history of adaptation to the local environment (Atran et
al. 1999; Atran et al. 2002), and that migrants are one of the causes of environmental
degradation (Pichón and Uquillas 1999). But studies in Southern México suggest that
farmers who migrate to a new ecological environment quickly learn locally adopted
techniques from local farmers (De Vos 1992; Alcorn and Toledo 2000; Vogl et al. 2002).
In this paper, I study the differences and similarities between local and migrant farmers
regarding homegardens management. For the case study, I use primary information
collected among farmers with homegardens in Central Asturias (Spain). Homegardens in
Spain present an ideal case to evaluate the transformation, or adoption, of local homegarden
management practices by migrant farmers for two reasons. First, Spain is the country in the
European Community (EC) with the greatest concentration and diversity of extensive
agricultural systems (Díaz del Cañizo et al. 1998). Second, Spain is the EC´s country with
more continuity, persistence, and intensity in migratory flows (INE 2007).
This research is important for two reasons. First, results from this research contribute to the
debate of the environmental effects of migrant populations. This study will help clarify
whether local and migrant farmers manage the same environment in different ways, as a
first approach to understand the importance of traditional farming techniques for in situ
conservation. Second, this research contributes to basic knowledge about crop diversity in
Asturias. Asturias is one of the most biodiverse regions in Spain (INE 2007), yet few
studies focus on the constraints that can affect the development of in situ conservation of
genetic resources in the region. . Furthermore, Vogl and Vogl-Lukasser (2003) and Negri
(2007) have noticed that the lack on scientific research on homegardens in temperate
climates, compared with tropical ones, is alarming if we consider their importance in
conserving Europe´s crop diversity heritage.
Some geographical and historical aspects of Central Asturias
Central Asturias is a region located at northwest Spain, being part of the Autonomous
Community of “Principado de Asturias” (42° 53’ and 43°42’ north latitude) (Figure 1).
Asturias corresponds to the “humid Iberia” (Rivas-Martínez 1987), characterized by the
buffer effect of the ocean which prevent abrupt temperature changes given place to soft
winters and fresh summers. Rainfall in the area is high, without dry season, and with
abundant clouds due to “barrier effect” of the mountains. Annual mean temperatures, in the
study area, range from 17.3-7.5 °C, respectively, and the annual mean precipitation for the
area is 1066 mm (Ninyerola et al. 2005).
Homegardens have historically been part of the agricultural systems in Central Asturias,
and have mainly been oriented for peasant-like families´ subsistence (Rodríguez and
Menéndez 2005). Until the mid 20th century, farming in Central Asturias was strongly
based on cereal cultivation (e.g. Triticum spelta, Secale cereal, Panicum milliaceum), fruit
trees (e.g. Malus domestica, Prunus domestica) and vegetables (e.g. Brassica oleracea,
Phseolus vulgaris) (Bosque-Maurel and Vilá-Valentí 1990). Work on farm was done
manually, and soil fertilization was done with locally produced manure taking advantage of
the surrounding resources. Agricultural systems in Central Asturias have changed during
the second mid of the 20th century. Many factors that took place in the first mid of the 20th
century have undermined the traditional agricultural and social organization of the region,
including the introduction of new competitive crops (e.g. Zea mays, Solanum tuberosum)
(Bosque-Maurel and Vilá-Valentí 1990), the strong polarization of the industrial and
mining economic activities, the stagnation of growth population, and the strong migration
flows (Rodríguez and Menéndez 2005).
(FIGURE1 HERE)
Important economic activities for the region not long ago, like the cereal cultivation, have
been almost totally disappeared. Fruit trees and vegetable are still cultivated, but their
importance and extend is reduced. Today almost all of agricultural land is abandoned,
covered with meadows and pastures. The maintenance of some activity of the primary
sector in the region might be a consequence of the implementation of new processes of
rural development in Central Asturias, to recover the region from the industrial crisis in the
70´s by increasing the activities linked to the recovery of local traditional culture and by
reinforcing the relations between urban and rural areas (Rodríguez and Menéndez 2005).
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Field work took place during the months of July and August of 2008 in Central Asturias,
Spain. This study was done in the context of the project “Homegardens in the Iberian
Peninsula”, whose main objective is to study the importance of homegardens in 1)
biodiversity conservation, particularly in agrobiodiversity, and 2) the preservation,
transmission and innovation in local agricultural knowledge.
Definitions
For the purpose of this paper, I use the term local to refer to people who was born and grew
up in Asturias, whether in the current village or residency or not. The term migrant refers to
people who was born and grew –at least partially- in any other place, whether in other
region of Spain or in another country. I use the term traditional management practices to
refer to the customary ways of using resources that have survived for a long time in the
region. Presumably traditional management practices embody a prolonged empiric
experience and constitute an intimate knowledge of the environment that allows effective
production processes and make the best use of the local environment. Finally, the term
homegarden refers to low scale agricultural production systems with low economic returns,
multi-layered and located near households, maintained by family members based in their
local knowledge and resources (Ruonavaara 1996). In my case study, homegardens are not
primarily market-oriented, and are also characterized by a low capital investment and the
simplicity of the technologies employed.
Sample
Research was conducted among 56 homegardens belonging to 41 informants in 10 villages
in Central Asturias. Village selection was based on theoretical and practical criteria using a
multi-layered sampling, so the 10 selected villages were representative of the
environmental and socioeconomic variability of the region. Village selection also followed
two practical criteria to facilitate transport across sites. Specifically, I selected villages with
1) a widespread existence of homegardens; and with 2) proximity between homegardens
(e.g. in the same municipality). Within selected villages, I used purposive samples for the
selection of homegardens and farmers to create representative groups in each village (e.g.
irrigated and non-irrigated homegardens, neo-rural and traditional homegardens) and
between farmers (e.g. age, gender, origin). After the selection of homegardens, a first visit
was done to select the farmer or main person responsible of each homegarden, following
the characteristics mentioned above. We considered the main person responsible for the
homegarden, as the farmer who realized most of the work on the homegarden and took
decisions about its management. Participation was voluntary, and farmer’s availability to
participate in the research was assessed during the first visit. The 56 homegardens used in
this study are located in the Spanish Mountain Agriculture Zone (Rodríguez & Menéndez
2005), between 0 and 400 m above sea level. The average size of homegardens is 0.05 ha
approximately. About 20% of the farmers with cultivated homegardens were interviewed in
each village. Local farmers constituted the 68% of the total sample and migrant farmers the
32%. Total sample was composed by 27 male farmers and 14 female farmers with an
average of 8 years of education. Farmers ranged between 30 and 87 years of age (mean=
67.5 years).
Data collection
Data was collected in two phases. During the first phase, I conducted informal interviews
with 15 local farmers of the sample, to get information about agro-ecological knowledge
and folk management practices at homegardens. I used the information from informal
interviews to construct a list of currently used traditional management practices at
homegardens in Central Asturias. Based in the observations done by Vogl and Vogl-
Lukasser (2003), I used three main features for the selection of the practices that were
included in the second phase: 1) simplicity of the tools employed; 2) low investment; and
3) use of natural local resources.
During the second phase, I conducted structured interviews with the main responsible of the
selected homegardens. The structured questionnaire included basic socio-demographic
information on the farmer (i.e., age, sex, education, place of origin), and a rating of the five
selected homegarden management practices. Specifically, in the socio-demographic
questionnaire I asked about the place of origin of the farmer, to create a variable “Origin”
that was coded 1 if the farmer was local and 2 if the farmer was migrant. For the rating
task, I asked each informant, to rate with a five point scale (0=“not at all important” to
4=“very important”) the five management practices identified (Handwerker 2002). All
informants rated the practices as “very important” or “not at all important”. Therefore, for
further analysis I created a binary variable that took the value of 1 for “not at all important”
and 2 for “very important”.
Data analysis
Raw data were stored in an Access database (Microsoft Office package) and subsequently
analyzed with SPSS (version 15.0) for Windows (SPSS 2006). To identifying similarities
and differences between the local and migrant farmers´ ratings, I used a generalization of
principal component analysis known as categorical principal component analysis
(CATPCA), which allows, one to simultaneously assess and reduce the dimensionality of
data from categorical variables. CATPCA can fit qualitative or categorical variables that
describe the person in a limited number of categories (Linting et al 2007). Categorical
variables are quantified using optimal scaling resulting in optimal principal components for
the transformed variables (Meulman and Heiser 2005). In CATPCA dimensions correspond
to components (that is, an analysis with two dimensions results in two-component
analysis), and object scores correspond to component scores. The variance accounted for in
each dimension for each variable separately is equal to the squared component loading, and
the component loading itself is the correlation between the transformed variable and a
principal component (given by the object scores) in a particular dimension (Linting et al
2007).
In contrast to linear PCA, CATPCA can handle variables of different analysis levels
(nominal, ordinal and numerical) simultaneously and can deal with non-linear relationships
between variables (Linting et al. 2006). An important application of CATPCA is the
evaluation of the preferences over a group of elements among groups of people to establish
similarities or differences between them (Meulman and Heiser 2005), the analysis intended
here.
In the analysis presented here, the categorical data resulting from the ranting exercise were
measured at an ordinal scale and analyzed in a two-component model using CATPCA.
Specifically, the five main practices ranted by farmers were my analysis variables; the
variable “Origin” was selected as a labeling variable, this is that the variable has no
influence on the analysis, but is fitted in the solution of scatterplots to see its relation with
the other variables (Linting et al. 2007) .
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Traditional management of homegardens in Central Asturias
The function of traditional management at homegardens in Central Asturias is twofold, a
mechanism for PGRs preservation and the modification and creation of landscapes,
conferring natural and cultural diversity to the region (Biber-Klemm and Cottier 2006). The
interruption of the diversification and expansion of the agrarian production after the
Spanish Civil War and the migratory flows in the region have impacted in different ways
the traditional agricultural model (Rodríguez & Menéndez 2005). Practices like the use of
manure as main source of soil fertilization, the use of simple tools like the hoes, spades or
forks or weeding by hand have been preserved in the Asturian´s traditional agrarian model
among local and migrant farmers. Modern commercial agriculture practices such as the use
of chemical fertilizers or rotary cultivators or tractors for working the soil are scarcely used.
The use of manure for fertilization represents a very effective and cheap management
practice. The manure generally comes from farm´s own cattle, sheep or horses, although
sometimes is interchanged among farmers. Fertilization with manure is still used by the
82.9% of the farmers interviewed (Table 1), or 56.1% and 26.8% of locals and migrants
respectively. Weeding by hand, even when it is very laborious, is also a very cheap
practice. Simple tools such as hoes or the very same hand are used. This is a very
homogeneous practice among farmers, 97.6 % of the total sample agreed in the importance
of this practice at homegarden (Table 1). Commercially available synthetic or biological
pesticides to combat diseases and pest, a very expensive and harmful practice to the
environment , is equally used by local and migrant farmers. Only a few farmers (26.8 % of
the total sample) eliminate pest and diseases by hand, removing the affected part of the
plant or the whole plant (Table 1). Soil cultivation is done generally by hand, using very
simple tools like hoes, spades or forks. Tools are locally built or repaired from old ones.
Since homegardens in the area are usually small, this could influence the preference of this
practice among farmers. Only 26.9% of the farmers use motor driven equipment (tractor or
rotary cultivators) to cultivate the soil (Table 1). Outside seedling is widely used among
farmers (80.5% of the total sample). This practice does not require any investment and
enhance the relation between plant and environment. The use of greenhouse for seedling is
not widely spread, probably because the elevated costs of implementation and maintenance.
Only 19.5% of the interviewed farmers consider that inside seedling (in greenhouses) is
very important.
As mentioned above, manual weeding is a very common practice among farmers. Almost
the 100% of the informants rated it as “very important”. Due to its homogeneity and the
relative small value for the extraction communalities (.511) presented for by the
components in the pre-tests with PCA. WEEDING practice did not fit with the structure of
the other practices. For this reason I excluded this variable for further analysis.
(TABLE1 HERE)
Categorical Principal Component Analysis
Results from a CATPCA of the four traditional management practices considered, shows
that more than half of the total variance (68.91%) is explained by the first two dimensions
of the model, suggesting that the model fits the data (Meulman and Heiser 2005). The first
dimension´s eigenvalue was 1.620 explaining the 40.50 % of the total variance, whereas the
second dimension´s eigenvalue was 1.137 which explained 28.41 % of the variance in the
data. The Cronbach´s alpha, based on the total eigenvalue, was .850 indicating the
reliability of the procedure.
Based on farmers´ ratings, Figure 2 shows that local and migrant farmers use the four
practices indifferently. Practices do not show to be influenced to each other (e.g. practicing
SEEDLING does not tell us if the practice PLAGUES is done or not). However, MANURE
and SOIL practices, apparently, are directly associated in their use. In other words, if any
single farmer is practicing MANURE, probably he or she will not be practicing SOIL.
Furthermore, the practice of SEEDLING shows a strong contrast with the other three
practices with respect to dimension 1, due to its high positive component loading (Figure
2). MANURE and SOIL are the two practices more correlated in dimension 2, but in
opposite directions, revealing a contrast between these two practices while having little
relation with the practice PLAGUES (Figure 2).
(FIGURE2 HERE)
Both considered that the traditional practices MANURE, SOIL and SEEDLING are “very
important” for management of homegarden. Nonetheless, the practice PLAGUES results to
be “not at all important” for the two groups. We can appreciate this more clearly in Figure
3, where the up and down plots correspond to the analysis of migrant and local farmers
respectively. Figure 3 shows that the representation of the ranking “very important” (2) for
the variables MANURE, SOIL and SEEDLING is relatively close to the origin. This
closeness indicates that these practices are not notably different among the group (Meulman
and Heiser 2005), suggesting that both local and migrant farmers consider those three
practices as very important. We can also detect some similarities between local and
immigrant farmers in relation to their scores along the two dimensions (Table 2). These
scores are useful for detecting outliers, similarities between groups (as in this study) or
revealing some special patterns (Meulman and Heiser 2005).
(FIGURE3 HERE)
In Table 2, similar scores along a dimension indicate a similarity between farmers with
respect to that dimension. In contrast, dissimilar scores indicate a difference for the
specified dimension (Meulman and Heiser 2005).
(TABLE2 HERE)
We can see several sub-groups in Table 2 composed by farmers with similar scores for both
dimensions. But surprisingly, those groups are mixed with farmers and migrants,
suggesting no significant differences between the two populations (Figure 4). This tendency
shows that the use of any of the traditional management practices selected have the same
rating of importance and is not directly related with the farmers´ origin. Some farmers may
have been using a specific set of practices, different from others, without necessarily being
using all the available practices, in function of their personal interests (e.g. more crop
production, more plant diversity at homegarden), that finally became collective interests
corresponding to a specific social-environmental context in a single homogeneous group .
(FIGURE4 HERE)
Although the sample configured as an equal group, we can do inferences in the relations
between farmers and the practices. Combining the plot of component loadings for the
practices (Figure 2) and the farmers´ scores plot (Figure 4) we can construct a farmers´
biplot (Figure 5). The vector (lines) of a practices points into the direction of the highest
category (“very important” in this case) of the variable. As mentioned above, the practices
MANURE and SOIL are contrasting in relation with dimension 2. This means that farmers
with large negative score in dimension 2 do not use manure as soil fertilizer. This is the
case of the group with three L located at the right down corner of the plot. By the other
hand, the farmers located near MANURE´s highest category do not use simple tools for
working the soil, but motor driven equipment.
On the other hand, the practice PLAGUES is mainly related with the second dimension, but
does not present contrast with another practice, so all the farmers located near or below
zero with respect to dimension 2 will be using commercially pesticides (73.2%). This
suggests that this traditional management practice, in particular, could be getting lost in
Central Asturias. In contrast the practice SEEDLING is related with the first dimension and
contrast with the rest of practices. Figure 5 shows a unique local farmer located near
SEEDLING´s highest category, suggesting that does not use any of the three traditional
management practices left. As I mentioned before a specific group, even when it is part of a
bigger common group, could be acting in function of collective specific group interests.
These interests could be influencing the preference over one or another set of practices.
This will depend of the cultural histories and cultural ideas of a group of persons behaving
differently in a same physical environment (Atran et al. 1999; Atran et al. 2002;
Handwerker 2002)
(FIGURE 5 HERE)
CONCLUSIONS
Our data suggest that in Central Asturias there is no difference in the use of traditional
management practices between local and migrant farmers, with the exception of the manual
control of crop plagues and diseases. Local farmers continue to use manual control of crops
and plagues whereas migrant farmers do not consider this practice as important. . Modern
innovations in farming systems have not impacted strongly in the studied area. In Central
Asturias, as in other places (Fernandes and Nair 1986; Landauer and Brazil 1990;
Torquebiau 1992; Vogl et al. 2002; Vogl and Vogl-Lukasser 2003), traditional management
practices seem to be stronger than agricultural innovations because their easy access and
lower investments. Further and more complex analysis could not be run because my sample
and the number of practices selected were very small. The inclusion of more practices and a
bigger sample could give stronger evidence in the use of local traditional practices between
local and migrant farmers.
Results from this study suggest that local practices might be adopted by migrant farmers as
an adaptive response to the local ecological, economic, and social factors, as it has also
been suggested in previous research (Vogl et al 2002). The maintenance of traditional
management practices in a specific region could be an indicator of local PGRs preservation.
Data also showed that one of the practices selected for this study (manual control of plants´
plagues and diseases) could be getting lost. This may response to many factors. One of
them could be the increasing age of farmers and the lack of willingness of the new
generations to adopt the older farming systems and crops favoring the cultural erosion.
Another cause could be the change of interests among groups of farmers, for example a
change from a subsistence system to a market oriented system that requires more
investment in order to generate more production. Furthermore, poor policies and the lack of
scientific research in this field contribute to hinder the recognition of the work of local
people who still maintain the agro-ecosystems and the migrant people that adopt the local
practices in order to give continuity to the high agrobiodiversity inherited by locals.
To develop effective strategies and consistent policies for Europe’s rich crop diversity
heritage, more ethnobiology studies are need in European homegardens. This research will
further improve our understanding of the importance of the folk traditional knowledge in
the PGRs and cultural preservation in these systems and the mechanisms involved in the
maintenance or loss of genetic varieties and management practices associated to them.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank the farmers who shared their homegardens with us and provided information on
their knowledge on gardening. I thank Victoria Reyes García (Institute of Science and
Environmental Technologies, Autonomous University of Barcelona) who supported the
realization and production of this paper. Juan José Lastra (Department of Organisms and
Systems, University of Oviedo) for his academic support in the work field. Sara Vila Diez
(Department of Organisms and Systems, University of Oviedo) for her friendship,
comments and work field support. Research was funded by a Marie Curie Grant (MIRG-
CT-2006-036532) and by a grant from the Programa de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades
del Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain. (SEJ2007-60873/SOCI).
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ILLUSTRATIONS´ CAPTIONS
TABLE1. Selected practices in the traditional management and count and percentage of
ratings for local and migrant farmers for each practice.
TABLE2. List of farmers´ scores on dimension 1 and 2 labeled by farmers´ origin, local
(L) and migrant (M).
FIGURE1. Geographical location of Autonomous Community of “Principado de
Asturias.”
FIGURE2. Plot of component loadings on the first and second dimension.
FIGURE3. Joint plot category points based on farmers´ ratings (1= “not at all important”
and 2= “very important”) over the practices. For immigrant (upper plot) and local (down
plot) farmers.
FIGURE4. Farmers´ scores plot labeled by farmers´ origin (n=41), local (L) and migrant
(M), for first and second dimension.
FIGURE5. Biplot of objects of loading components for practices and farmers´ scores plot
on first and second dimension.
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURE1
Traditional management practices selected Rating Origin n=41
Total L M
Soil fertilization with manure (MANURE)
1 (not at all important) Count 5 2 7 % total 12.2% 4.9% 17.1%
2 (very important) Count 23 11 34 % total 56.1% 26.8% 82.9%
Total Count 28 13 41 % total 68.3% 31.7% 100.0%
Manual weeding (WEEDING)
1 (not at all important) Count 1 0 1 % total 2.4% 0.0% 2.4%
2 (very important) Count 27 13 40 % total 65.9% 31.7% 97.6%
Total Count 28 13 41 % total 68.3% 31.7% 100.0%
Manual control of plants´ plagues and diseases (PLAGUES)
1 (not at all important) Count 21 9 30 % total 51.2% 22.0% 73.2%
2 (very important) Count 7 4 11 % total 17.1% 9.8% 26.8%
Total Count 28 13 41 % total 68.3% 31.7% 100.0%
Working the soil manually, using simple tools (SOIL)
1 (not at all important) Count 9 2 11 % total 22.0% 4.9% 26.9%
2 (very important) Count 19 11 30 % total 46.3% 26.8% 73.1%
Total Count 28 13 41 % total 68.3% 31.7% 100.0%
Outside seedling (SEEDLING)
1 (not at all important) Count 6 2 8
% total 14.6% 4.9% 19.5%
2 (very important) Count 22 11 33
% total 53.7% 26.8% 80.5%
Total Count 28 13 41 % total 68.3% 31.7% 100.0%
TABLE1
Dimension 11.00.50.0-0.5-1.0
Dim
ensi
on 2
1.0
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
SEEDLING
SOIL
PLAGUES
MANURE
SEEDLING
SOIL
PLAGUES
MANURE
FIGURE2
FIGURE3
Dimension 1 1.51.00.50.0-0.5-1.0-1.5
1
0
-1
-2
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
SOILSEEDLING PLAGUESMANURE
Dimension 110-1 -2
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5
-2.0
2
1
2
1
21
2
1
SOILSEEDLING PLAGUESMANURE
Dimension 2
Dimension 2
Origin Dimension
Origin Dimension
1 2 1 2 L 1.557 0.324 M 0.285 -0.178 L 1.245 -1.438 L 0.285 -0.178 L 1.245 -1.438 L 0.285 -0.178 L 1.245 -1.438 M 0.285 -0.178 L 1.245 -1.438 M 0.285 -0.178 M 1.245 -1.438 L 0.285 -0.178 M 1.245 -1.438 L -0.560 1.787 L 0.598 1.584 M -0.859 -0.623 M 0.598 1.584 L -0.859 -0.623 L 0.598 1.584 M -0.859 -0.623 L 0.598 1.584 L -0.859 -0.623 L 0.598 1.584 L -0.859 -0.623 L 0.598 1.584 L -0.859 -0.623 L 0.598 1.584 L -0.872 0.025 L 0.598 1.584 L -0.872 0.025 M 0.285 -0.178 M -1.704 1.342 L 0.285 -0.178 L -2.017 -0.420 M 0.285 -0.178 L -2.017 -0.420 L 0.285 -0.178 L -2.017 -0.420 M 0.285 -0.178 M -2.017 -0.420 L 0.285 -0.178
TABLE2
FIGURE4
FIGURE5