PRACTICE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM BY THE FARMERS IN MAINTAINING ECOSYSTEM IN BANGLADESH

The main focus of the study was to identify the indigenous knowledge system being used by the rural men in farming and household activities and also to examine its extent. Data were collected from Poba upazila under Rajshahi district and Gabtoli upazila under Bogra district in Bangladesh from 125 randomly selected rural men out of total population of 1,145 from 15 February to 14 May, 2009. The fifty potential indigenous knowledge systems were identified through participatory rural appraisal prior to finalizing the schedule. The findings reveal that greater proportion of rural men were illiterate, middle aged categories, small farmer category, medium agricultural and environmental knowledge category, high level farming experience, medium cosmopoliteness, medium communication exposure, no organizational participation and moderately favorable category. Among the 50 identified indigenous knowledge systems, “Setting up bamboo sticks, branches of trees etc., in rice fields to let the birds sit and eat away insects” reached the highest extent of use by the farmers in agricultural practices. “Soaking boro rice seeds in water for 1-3 days before sowing in the bed for rapid germination”, “Drying mature bottle gourds (Lagenaria vulgaris) in the sun and storing the seeds inside without rupturing the fruits” and “Keeping rice seedlings under shed for 1-2 days before transplanting for the purpose of increasing tolerance” took the 2, 3 and 4 position regarding the extent of use. Considering farmers’ practicing category, the highest proportion (47.2%) of the respondents belonged to the low user as compared to 39.2% in the moderate user and 13.6% in the high user. Recommendations were forwarded to the extension specialists, researchers and administrators to undertake desk and experimental research concerning indigenous knowledge systems.


Introduction
Bangladesh, basically an agro-based country, is considered one of the world's most densely populated countries (834 persons per square km) with an annual population growth rate of 1.41% (BBS, 2001).In such a setting, the pressure on the land for agricultural production and the demand for job is increasing day by day.This has led to rapid changes in the country's socio-economic and demographic characteristics in the recent years.Against this backdrop, it is reasonable to expect that the nature and pattern of agricultural production have also been changing with the passage of time.Agriculture not only employs most of the national labour force, but also supplies food for the people, raw materials for the use of domestic industries and industrial development sustaining rural society and preserving land and natural environment.The farmers have a tendency to follow 'Modern agriculture' for better production in Bangladesh but with high levels of external inputs like agrochemicals, hybrid seed, fuel-based mechanization, which have contributed to disagreement in the agro-ecosystem.Overexploitation of the limited natural resources has brought changes in the natural ecosystems, which threatens to undermine future progress.To attain sustainable yield, proper farm management is necessary.In this case, indigenous knowledge system (IKS) is more appropriate.In reality, technological interventions in Bangladesh's agriculture have given rise to disturbing issues of sustainability (Farouk and Salam, 1996).The negative environmental and social impacts of high external-input agriculture have become increasingly obvious in the recent years.At present, considerable attention is being given to the farmers' wisdom or indigenous or local knowledge systems in different parts of the world.For some, this knowledge provides a basis for identifying ecologically sustainable options of resource use.IKSs form the basis for decision-making, which is operationalized through indigenous organizations, and they provide the foundation for local innovations and experimentation.Chowdhury et al. (1996) suggested that indigenous knowledge should be valued as it comprises a storehouse of accumulated experience about natural resource management essential for sustainable agricultural development.According to Thrupp (1987), IKSs are adaptive skills of local people, usually derived from many years of experience that have often been communicated through 'oral traditions' and learned through family members and generations.Such practices may relate to commodity production, protection, harvest or post harvest operations.Indigenous knowledge is often the most suitable, economic and economically friendly and has no adverse effect.The vast majority of the farmers have been striving hard for generations together to survive and continue their life processes through continuous manipulations, adjustment and readjustment of their agricultural practices depending upon the local conditions of variable degrees with which they are often hit by the vagaries of nature.
Being a new country in an ancient land, Bangladesh possesses a rich heritage of indigenous technical knowledge, though much of which is lost during modernization of agriculture.Still this country and people are proud to nurture many myths, beliefs and traditions (Chowdhury et al., 1996).The historical, anthropological and socio-religious traditions of Bangladesh particularly the Mauryan epigraphy, the puthi calendars of Bengal, the Sayings of 'Khana' the Quran and Hadith, the value system of Hindus, exhibit a strong indigenous awareness of environment and rural resources conservation.IKS of farmers is believed to be highly effective and applicable to many instances even today.IKS of farmers is considered as an important source of information about the local farming systems, experiences, institutions, culture etc. and it is also proved that this knowledge system plays a significant role in designing a formal and efficient extension service (Sharland, 1991).There are many IKSs which are extensively used by the farmers but the scientists are not aware of these.The present study was, therefore, undertaken to identify the IKSs being used by the rural men in farming and household activities and also to examine its extent.

Study area
Three villages from each upazila namely Poba under Rajshahi district and Gabtoli upazila under Bogra district in Bangladesh were locales for the study and they were selected purposively because most of the farmers in these areas are engaged in fishery and animal husbandry besides the agricultural operation.The farmers who are practicing IKSs in their agricultural and household activities were taken into account as regards population.The population comprised 1,145 household heads of those 6 villages.

Collection of data
Semi-structured interview schedules were used for collecting data from a sample of 125 households out of 1,145 households from 15 February to 14 May, 2009.The schedule contained questions on selected individual characteristics of the respondents as well as 35 IKSs in agriculture, 9 in animal husbandry and 6 in fishery.This knowledge was identified through PRA (participatory rural appraisal) techniques prior to finalization of the schedule.

Measurement of farmers' characteristics
The three characteristics like age, education and farm size were measured by using the measuring units of year, year of schooling and hectare respectively.The agricultural knowledge and farmers' knowledge about environmental pollution were included in different types of questions (each characteristic included 22 questions) in relation to those respective subjects and it was measured by using score.Four point Likert type scale was used on 15 statements which included different types of activities like agriculture, fishery and animal husbandry to measure supervision of crop production.Cosmopoliteness of a farmer was measured by computing a cosmopoliteness score on the basis of his frequency of visits to 6 different places outside his own social system.Communication exposure score of the respondents was computed by summing the obtained scores from the responses of the twenty-one selected communication media.Organizational participation of the respondents was measured on the basis of two dimensions; nature of involvement and number of organizations in which the respondents were involved.Attitude was measured by using five point Likert type scale with 14 statements (7 positive and 7 negative).

Measurement of extent of use of IKSs
Four-point rating scale ranging from 'frequently', 'occasionally', 'rarely' to 'not at all' was used to measure the extent of use of IKS in this study.A similar four point scale was used by Saha (2008) and Roy (2009) for measuring "extent of use of IKS in agricultural practices".The scoring techniques are given in Table 1.The above rating scale was applied to measure the fifty potential IKSs which were identified through PRA.The score on the 'extent of use of IKS' for an individual respondent was calculated by summing up the scores for all the enlisted 50 IKSs.The 'extent of use of IKS' score for an individual respondent could range from 0 to 150 where 0 indicates no use of IKS and 150 indicates the use of maximum level.However, besides having calculated the 'extent of use of IKS' score for all the 125 respondents, an effort was also made to compute the Indigenous knowledge use index (IKUI) to analyze the relative position of each of the IKSs in items of their use.The following formula was used for this purpose: Where, IKUI = Indigenous technology use index; N 1 = Number of farmers who used the IKS frequently; N 2 = Number of farmers who used the IKS occasionally; N 3 = Number of farmers who used the IKS rarely; N 4 = Number of farmers who did not use the IKS at all; The IKUI for each of the IKSs could range from 0 to 375.

Characteristics of farmers
Human personality is the most complex and fascinating phenomenon.There are many interrelated and constituent attributes that characterize an individual and take an integral part in influencing the development of human behaviour.These include the individual's personal, economic, social and psychological characteristics.It can be postulated that these characteristics influence decisionmaking process relating to an actual behaviour in the individual's life.The information regarding the selected characteristics of the farmers is presented in Table 2. Categorization of the farmers was made on the basis of observed data and in some cases (age, farm size, education) considering the government rule.
Age: The majority (61.6%) of the farmers were middle-aged compared to 18.4% being young and 20.0% being old.Young people are always detached and not sincere in their familial life and the old always show the aloofness in different agricultural activities.This is why, during the selection of population in this study through PRA, middle aged farmers were considered.Saha (2008) found that age of the farmers had significant relationship for using indigenous technical knowledge (ITK) in agricultural practices.
Education: The highest proportion (43.2%) of the farmers was illiterate and 25.6% had primary school education.The data also showed that 11.2% of the respondents had secondary school education, 11.2% were able only to put signature, while 8.8% of the farmers had higher education qualifications.Education is the process of producing desired change in behaviour of the farmers and educated farmers are more conscious of using of environmentally friendly IKSs in their field.
Farm size: Almost half proportion (50.4%) of the farmers had a small farm (0.21-1.00 ha) and 5.6% had a large farm (above 3.00 ha).About 36.0% of the farmers had a medium farm (1.01-3.00ha) compared to 8.0% having very small farm (up to 0.20 ha).Faruque (2002) observed that there was no relationship between farm size and the extent of use of ITK in rice cultivation.Agricultural knowledge: The highest proportion (53.6%) of the respondents belonged to the medium knowledge category, while 24.0%belonged to the high knowledge category and 22.4% to the low knowledge category.Agricultural knowledge helps the farmers to grow crops by using environmentally friendly cultivation practices.Roy (2009) also found that IKS increased with the increased agricultural knowledge of the farmers.
Knowledge about environmental pollution: Almost half proportion (49.6%) of the farmers belonged to the medium category in respect to knowledge about environmental pollution while 28.8% belonged to the low category and 21.6% to the high category.Agriculture and environment have a close relationship and interact with each other in such a way that the health of agriculture depends on proper functioning of environmental process and the health of environment depends on respectful agriculture.Rahman (2008) observed that there was a positive significant relationship between knowledge about environmental pollution and an attitude towards IPM practices in rice cultivation.
Farming experience: The highest proportion (57.6%) of the farmers had medium farming experience compared to 30.4% having high farming experience and 12.0% having low farming experience.
Supervision of crop production: More than half (55.2%) of the farmers achieved a medium level of supervision for crop production as compared to 17.6% achieving low and 27.2% achieving a high level of supervision for the crop production (Table 2).Rahman (2008) observed that there was no relationship between supervision of crop production and an attitude towards IPM practices in rice cultivation.
Cosmopoliteness: The highest proportion (52.8%) of the farmers had medium cosmopoliteness as compared to 36.0%having low and 11.2% having high cosmopoliteness.Individuals who are cosmopolite frequently come in contact with new people, new things and new ideas.Cosmopoliteness thus brings about a change in the mental make-up and makes them more receptive to new ideas.Faruque (2002) in his study found that cosmopoliteness of the respondents had a significant negative relationship with their extent of use of ITK in rice cultivation.Saha (2008) found that cosmopoliteness of farmers had a significant negative relationship with their extent of use of ITKs in agricultural practices.
Communication exposure: Half proportion (51.2%) of the farmers of the study area had medium media contact as compared to 42.4% having low media contact.Only 6.4% of the farmers had high extension media contact.Islam (1996) observed in his study that there was a positive and significant relationship between the media exposure of the respondents and the extent of use of indigenous technical knowledge in the context of sustainable agricultural development.
Organizational participation: A major proportion (36.8%) of the respondents in the study area also had no organizational participation.The highest proportion (35.0%) had low organizational participation compared to 18.4% and 9.6% having medium and high organizational participation, respectively.Faruque (2002) in his study found that organizational participation of the respondents had a significant positive relationship with their extent of use of ITK in rice cultivation.
Attitude towards IKS: The highest proportion (60.8%) of the respondents had a moderately favorable attitude towards IKS practices as compared to 19.2% having slightly favorable and 20.0% highly favorable attitude towards IKS in agricultural practices.Saha (2006) conducted a study on perception of farmers on farmer information needs assessment (FINA) in Sadar upazila of Gazipur district.He observed that farming experience of the farmers had a highly significant positive relationship with their perception of FINA.

Identification of IKSs being used by the farmers
There is a wealth of knowledge at the disposal of farmers which they have been using generation after generation in Bangladesh.In the present study, IKS has been defined as the traditional knowledge of the farmers of Bangladesh in the production, protection and preservation of crops generated by their ancestors and internalized by the local people.Some identified IKSs in this study show colossal potential which has a direct positive influence on maintaining the ecosystem in Bangladesh.In all, there were 50 indigenous knowledge systems against which farmers were asked to pinpoint their uses.Table 1 presented the identified IKSs along with the number of citations on the extent of use of the individual IKSs.Based on these citations, IKUI for each of the IKSs was also calculated and finally ranked of each IKS.The IKUI along with its associated ranks appears in Table 3.
Among practices, the 35 identified IKSs in agriculture "Setting up bamboo sticks, branches of trees etc., in rice fields to let the birds sit and eat away insects" reached the highest extent of use by the farmers in agricultural practices.This is an easy IKS which is practised all over the country and does not need extra money.Farmers can put bamboo stick or branches of trees which are available in their surrounding area.So, the opinion of farmers regarding this IKS took the first position."Soaking boro rice seeds in water for 1-3 days before sowing in the bed for rapid germination", "Drying mature bottle gourds (Lagenaria vulgaris) in the sun and storing the seeds inside without rupturing the fruits" and "Keeping rice seedlings under shed for 1-2 days before transplanting for the purpose of increasing tolerance" reached the 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th highest extent of use of IKS reported by farmers respectively.The value of IKUI shows that farmers more use IKSs related to seeds followed by pest management and other intercultural operations.This finding revealed that the farmers were very much concerned about seed health, crop health and crop management practices as a whole.Saha (2008) also recorded similar findings in his study.In Bangladesh rural area, men commonly use a few IKSs but women cover more area in this regard.35.Cutting of cabbage into small pieces dried in the sun and then kept in polythene bags Among the 6 identified IKS in fishery "Applying cow dung in the pond to feed the fish" reached the highest extent of use by the farmers in agricultural practices (Table 4).Usually, farmers in the village do not buy any feed for fish.They always use cow dung, which is available in their homestead.This is why this IKS reached the highest rank of extent.The 2 nd and 3 rd highest extent of use were achieved by "Applying lime in the pond to clear the unclean water" and "Applying the excreta of poultry birds in the pond to feed the fish", respectively."Applying rice kura (rice husk) as fish-feed in the pond" reached the lowest extent of use by the farmers.Applying lime in the pond to clear the unclean water 85 13 14 13 295 2 5.
Applying the excreta of poultry birds in the pond to feed the fish 84 11 8 22 282 3 F = frequently, O = occasionally, R = rarely, NAA = not at all, IKUI = indigenous technology use index.
Among the 9 identified IKSs in animal husbandry "Feeding rice mixed with KMnO 4 to chicken to cure fowl cholera" reached the highest extent of use by the farmers in agricultural practices (Table 5).Generally, women in villages do this job habitually and receive excellent responses."Feeding jat bichi kala (Musa sp.) to livestock for curing loose motion" occupied the 2 nd position for using of IKS in animal husbandry.Nowadays due to availability of a veterinary doctor farmers are not interested to use IKS in animal husbandry.The 3 rd and 4 th highest extents of use were held by "Feeding the katanate grass to livestock for improving lactation", and "Feeding the flesh of mollusks and snails to ducks for growth", respectively.
Indigenous knowledge and practices are important aspects of society's culture and its technology in Bangladesh.From Tables 3, 4 and 5 it is observed that there are many indigenous knowledge systems which are extensively used by the farmers in agriculture, fisheries and livestock sectors, but the scientists are not aware of these.There is no doubt the farmers have a wealth of knowledge of their own environment and that they have developed specific skill to use their environment.However, Bangladeshi communities offer a vast array of IKSs that are favorable to the food supply besides keeping environment sound.Modern agriculture is considered as one of resource-rich technologies, which has given rise to serious ecological, economic and socio-political repercussions in Bangladesh.So, the importance of using the IKSs which are low input oriented technologies can not be ignored.

Extent of use of IKS by individual
The scores on the extent of use of IKS by individual in the study area ranged from 65 to 125 against a possible range of 0 to 150.The extent of use of IKS ranged from 65 to 125, the mean being 87.12 with standard deviation 14.92 and coefficient of variation 222.69.The respondents were categorized into low user, moderate user and high user categories.The distribution is shown in Table 6.Data contained in Table 6 indicates that the highest proportion (47.2%) of the respondents belonged to the low user category as compared to 39.2% in the moderate user category and 13.6% in the high user category, respectively.Thus, the respondents in the study area provide no good footing in connection with their use of IKS in agricultural practices.From this standpoint, involvement of a minor proportion of the respondents in the high user category as well as a substantial attachment (86.4%) of the respondents to the low to moderate user categories seem to be somewhat confusing.Roy (2009) also found similar findings in her study that the highest proportion of the respondents fell into low to moderate user categories for practicing indigenous technical knowledge.Farmers are among the best evaluators of their own situation and environment.When they clearly understand and perceive that too much use of agrochemicals is not only detrimental to soil, water and environment at large but it is also hazardous for human health, they are careful.That is why the 1993 FAO Expert Consultation felt that the sustainability agenda called for extension agencies to be engaged in "learning from farmers' experiences, participatory planning, the use of indigenous technical knowledge and open learning systems" in place of traditional top-down models of technology transfer (Stocking, 1994).

Conclusion
The present study reveals that the Bangladeshi farmers conventionally acquire IKSs and they are practicing these IKSs in their production field.Once these are thoroughly identified, modified and presented to the farmers as extension information from the concerned government departments there would be great potential for achieving environmentally sound agriculture and also maintaining the ecosystem.In order to minimize the emerging food demand for the rapid growth of population in Bangladesh, different high input orientated technologies are introduced in the agricultural sector.A lack of proper knowledge of the farmers in respect to technologies and their inputs caused pollution to soil, water and other elements of the environment.The concerned administrators and policy makers should give attention and take necessary steps in order to provide fruitful and effective training for the farmers on IKS and also launch motivational programs through mass media for using IKS in their field.

Table 1 .
Scoring techniques for measuring IKS.

Table 3 .
List of identified IKSs used by the farmers in agriculture.Sowing red-stained Aus rice seeds in the field so that they are not eaten by the bird 14 20 77 96 24 27.Planting banana plants near the rodent holes in the Aman rice fields to control them 54 33 18 248 10.5 28.Achra (bamboo made rake) over the standing Aman rice (seedling stage) plant to Longitudinal incision at the base of gourd plants by sharp blade for early flowering 11 34 37 144 19 32.For preserving the tender shoots of jute plants for future use as vegetable they are slightly mixed with salts and dried in the sun

Table 4 .
List of identified IKSs used by the farmers in fishery.

Table 5 .
List of identified IKSs used by the farmers in animal husbandry.

Table 6 .
Distribution of the farmers according to their use of IKS.