Knowledge Creation in Local Nigerian Communities

In April, earlier this year, I and a group of other researchers at Pax Herbals had a meeting with sixty local farmers in Ewu, a village in Edo State. The meeting was part of Pax Herbal’s participatory action research strategy. Two-pronged, the strategy comprises getting local communities to identify, discuss and analyse their agricultural challenges and, secondly, assisting these communities to develop home-grown solutions. The farmers in Ewu complained that cassava farming is no longer profitable. According to them, while many families in the village cultivate cassava—which they harvest and eat—only a few of these families are able to sell their harvest, most of which they end up selling as leftovers.

Ultimately, in Ewu, each family practises subsistence farming. The farmers spend a great deal of time and energy in the sun clearing bushes, planting and then waiting for the cassava to grow and mature. Eventually, each farm is able to produce a few bags of cassava, and each bag is priced very cheaply in the local market. To generate a higher yield of cassava, the government distributes thousands of fertilisers. But the farmers insist the fertilisers don’t provide the solution, and only deplete the soil. They argue, instead, that organic farming is best.

At the meeting in April, we engaged the most elderly women in the community. These grandmothers and great-grandmothers are custodians of knowledge; the oldest among them was an energetic woman, who is 120 years old. Others were between the ages of 75 to 110.