Experts from necessity : agricultural knowledge of children orphaned by AIDS in the Couffo region, Benin

Chapter 1 sketches the general background of the study. The study tests the hypothesis that HIV and AIDS not only impairs or modifies farmers’ agroecological knowledge base, but also impairs or modifies their strategies to mobilize knowledge and resources. The research mainly aims to understand agricultural knowledge and practices among children orphaned by AIDS, consecutive to widespread interest in and concern about erosion of agricultural knowledge in AIDS-affected communities. Such a possible loss of knowledge could be detrimental for the children of farm households. Therefore, the focus is on studying possible intergenerational differences in knowledge between categories of child farmers and those of adult farmers, and analyze various causes that could explain these differences. The study is situated in the Couffo region, in south-west Benin. This region has a relatively high HIV prevalence rate. Chapter 2 presents the conceptual framework for the study, and introduces the main concepts, namely agricultural knowledge, problem-solving processes and the linkages between social networks, resources and agricultural practices. The design of the study is articulated around the concepts of ‘knowledge in stock’ and ‘knowledge in action.’ Knowledge as a stock represents the contents of people’s minds while knowledge as action makes refers to the way knowledge is applied in solving agricultural problems. This is reflected in how people understand a problem and develop practices to solve it. The chapter highlights that the way people solve a problem depends on their stocks of knowledge and on their capacity to develop different kind of strategies to effectively solve that problem. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the study design and the methodology used in the research process. The overall methodology, which was used is a mixed model approach. This approach combines qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection and analyses. It draws upon methods and techniques in ethnobiology and ethnoecology. Chapter 4 examines the magnitude of AIDS-related orphanhood in the Couffo by focusing on the demographic and livelihood characteristics of households containing children orphaned by AIDS. The aim is to understand orphans’ everyday life situations and to provide insights into the diversity of orphans and the way this diversity affects various responses to mitigating the impact of AIDS. Basic typologies, which are used by the care organizations, formed the entry point for conducting a household census. The result of the census shows the diversity among the children orphaned by AIDS. Particularly, it is shown that the majority of the orphans live in small households, which comprise of four or fewer members, and that most of these households are headed by female adults who are often the main care providers to the orphans. The main livelihood activities of the orphaned households consist of farming (mainly maize, cowpea and cassava) or small business, and in very few cases, livestock raising and off-farm labor. The census found a total of 322 AIDS-related orphans, aged from 0 to 14 years, and living within 88 households. Seventyone percent of them are under the care of their mothers and grandmothers, 68% are paternal orphans, 58% are between the ages of 7 and 12, and 68% are in primary school. These households are, to a large extent registered within local platforms for that offer direct or indirect access to formal care services implemented by national and international institutions. Support from the extended family includes more affective components such as frequent visits, or providing help during an intensive farm activity period or offering moral caution to borrow money. During the study of orphans’ typologies, it was noted that an important part of the children that had been counted were no longer living in their initial households. The investigation of these movements of the children shows that orphan mobility is rooted in various factors among which are the main livelihood activity of the household, the gender of the orphan’s main care giver, the amount of the household’s farm land, the age of the orphan and his/her contribution to farming activities. These parameters play an important role within the phenomena of orphans’ mobility and must be taken into consideration when designing appropriate care for rural orphans and their households. It is also found that some specific services are needed for the community members, with respect to managing conflict and tensions that could arise with the management of orphanhood, and that female caregivers deserve special attention and protection with respect to their access to land and other productive resources. Chapter 5 and 6 report on the differences in stocks of pests knowledge among maize and cowpea child and adult farmers. The ethnoecological perspective is used to uncover and explain child and adult farmers’ ability to name maize pests, through the analysis of their cognitive salience index (Sutrop’s CSI). Farmers’ perceptions and experiences of maize and cowpea pests are also investigated through the analysis of their life words. The intention is to systematically check the assumption of intergenerational loss of traditional agricultural knowledge linked to the impact of AIDS on farming communities. The results of the CSI analysis in Chapter 5 indicate that children orphaned by AIDS are more knowledgeable than non-orphaned. One-parent orphans residing with the surviving parent are more knowledgeable than double orphans farming on their own. Non-affected adults and their children are the ones with the lowest CSI scores compared to affected adults and orphans. These are rather positive findings in opposition to what was assumed. Results in Chapter 6 show that Adja farmers use various descriptors to reflect on their perceptions and experiences about pests in maize and cowpea farms. Precisely, eight types of descriptors are extracted from pile sort exercises and the consecutive follow-up conversations with farmers according to the groups they belong to (AIDS affection status and generations, that is, affected/nonaffected and child/adult). These descriptors are constructed from a rich and diverse body of semantics, that proves to be related to AIDS affection status, especially among the children. Further analysis shows that these descriptors are generally based on the form and/or function associated to the pests, and reflect individual farmer’s expertise about their agroecology. In fact, not only do these descriptors reveal farmers’ knowledge of pests, but they also enlighten us on farmers’ day-to-day relations with those pests while struggling to protect their harvest. One of the findings is the importance of the proximity of at least one biological parent and the quality of the relationship adult-child in the formation of child expertise. The disaggregated analysis of the domains of child expertise given their use of descriptors shows that double orphans are less expert compared to non-orphans with respect to pest damages on maize (p < 0.05), and compared to one-parent orphans for aspects linked to pest control (p < 0.05). In all, non-orphans seem to have similarities with affected adults, and use more functional items in their perceptions of pests, while orphans, especially one-parent orphans seem to have commonalities with non-affected adults with an equal use of form and function. This last point suggests that there could be an alternative route of expertise building among the one-parent orphans. Meanwhile, double orphans, making more use of form descriptors, seem to build their expertise from the observation of the natural order. Chapter 7 uncovers differential strategies used by farmers, especially the orphans, to access and use agricultural knowledge and their pest control practices. The aim is to examine the process through which farmers of various AIDS-affection statuses solve pest problems. In this process, the emphasis is put on how they identify the pest problem, diagnose its cause, choose among available solutions, and on the actions they eventually take to solve the pest problem. The study shows significant differences between affected and nonaffected adults, between orphans and non-orphans, and between adults and children in many aspects. The results show that individual farmers are more competent in identifying a pest problem than understanding the causes of that problem. With respect to causes identification, there are differences between orphans and non-orphans, between affected and non-affected adults, and between adults and children. Farmers’ choices of solutions are based on their perceptions of the causes, and their expectations (motivations for 226 growing cowpea). They, therefore, use criteria accordingly to choose among the available options. Although Adja cowpea farmers often rely on, and have confidence in the use of existing homogenous technological packages to deal with pest infestation, it is important to note that the solutions basket of the affected adults has a more diverse content. The study also found differences in the types of material resources and equipment of farmers given their AIDS status and generation. While the orphans predominantly report the possession of small sprayers, some of the non-orphans simply use domestic containers such as basins together with branches of palm trees to spray insecticide on their cowpea farms. Non-affected adults have bigger sprayers (sprayers with a pump) at their disposal, compared to affected adults. Farmers use several ways to get knowledge and information. The important role of cowpea for farm households justifies farmers’ strategies to mobilize knowledge and non knowledge resources for managing cowpea pests. However, it is important to signal that non-affected households mostly cultivate cowpea for market purposes, while affected households give this crop an important weight in household’s food stocks, in addition to the possible sale of surplus on the market. This apparent single versus dual purpose is to be linked to the combination of poverty and AIDS. Hence, affected and non-affected farmers’ strategies to solve cowpea pest problem is linked to the importance they confer to it as either means of generating income or that of diversifying household food resources. For instance, the fact that affected farmers give an important weight to cowpea in household food security architecture obliges them to be cautious with the use of harmful solutions such as spraying cotton insecticide on cowpea plants. In this line, it is found that one fifth of the AIDS- affected adult farmers only report the use of insecticides that are specifically recommended to be applied on cowpea plants. Further results show that farmers of different AIDS statuses use diverse connections to mobilize resources to address pest problems. This eventually evolves into differential perceptions and abilities in understanding the kind of pests in the farms, identifying the causes, and addressing pest problems based on their differential social realities and agency. Chapter 8 reflects on the most important findings and presents some general implications of the study for scholars, rural development agents and care providing institutions. The overall conclusion from the thesis is that there is little evidence to confirm the hypothesis of knowledge decline and/or a break in inter-generational knowledge transfer. In fact, the pattern suggested by this study is that orphans in Couffo tend to be more knowledgeable in the domain of pest management than both their non-orphan peers and adults. This conclusion is more pronounced for single orphans, especially for paternal orphans, than for double orphans, who seem to be in a relatively more vulnerable position with respect to the acquisition of agroecological knowledge. The need and necessity of being engaged in agricultural practices, and the quality of interactions with an adult teacher, are important explanations for this. The chapter further elaborates on the need to redefine childhood and to consider orphans in the 10 to 14 years age range as pre-adults given that they have specific needs and are drawn into adult responsibilities. The existence of AIDS is also analyzed as a possible door of opportunities for improving rural livelihoods. Analyzing vulnerability can also consist of examining what works and how to strengthen those existing local responses, with a special attention to the orphans and their guardians. This leads to examining innovative approaches that could help to effectively mainstream children orphaned by AIDS within rural development policies and agendas.