Abstract

One hundred and six farmers in two provinces were interviewed about their strategies of storing grains for survival on their farms. The main findings were: (1) Farmers find it difficult to use the chemicals suggested by the extension service for post-harvest pest control.(2) Instead, farmers use more local plants as traditional pesticides, although their actual effect is not proven. (3) Farmers observed that certain varieties seem to be more resistant than others to major pests. Formal research stations did not study this issue. (4) Farmers use indigenous knowledge to keep the costs of inputs down and find compromise solutions when they are confronted with a clash of factors influencing the situation of the crop (e.g. when fixing the optimal harvest time).

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