Peasants, Farmers and Scientists Book

1. What is tropical agronomy?
2. A tropical agronomist's education; 2.1 Wageningen and tropical agronomy around 1960; 2.2 The story of sugarcane; 2.3.1 Tropical crop husbandry; 2.3.2 Genetics; 2.3.3 Statistics; 2.3.4 Soil fertility; 2.4 Summing up.
3. Old and new: the 1960s and '70s; 3.1 New times, old reflexes: a cotton project on the island of Lombok; 3.2 Old and new in crop science: growth analysis and modelling; 3.3 Academic exercises in Africa ; 3.4 Is station research in Africa useful? 3.5 And what about teaching tropical agronomy in the Netherlands?
4. Farmers are smarter than you think; 4.1 In search of a new development vision; 4.2 Three visionaries; 4.3 IITA joins the FSR movement; 4.4 Some amazing things about West African farming; 4.5 FSR catches on at national research institutes ; 4.6 IITA's tenuous relationship with FSR.
5. Forests, fallows and fields; 5.1 Fallow-based cropping; 5.2 Where are fallow-based systems heading?
6. Farmer skills, an elusive property
7. Mainly technology; 7.1 What is technology? 7.2 Agronomists' technology: alley cropping, zero tillage, live mulch and more; 7.3 Plant breeders' technology: crop varieties; 7.4 Pest and disease control; 7.5 Has agronomic research been useful for the African farmer?
8. Follies and sanity of Farming Systems Research; 8.1 The pathology of diagnosis; 8.2 On-farm experiments; 8.3 Francophone approaches; 8.4 What about technology adoption? 8.5 Client orientation; 8.6 Development expertology; 8.7 Does FSR have a future?
9. The modelling sorcerers and their apprentices; 9.1 The promise; 9.2 What is a model? 9.3 Elegance and simplicity; 9.4 Enter computing power; 9.4.1 A static model for canopy assimilation; 9.5 The fabulous cotton plant; 9.6 How the plant disappeared from the models; 9.7 Has crop modelling been useful for non-modellers? 9.8 New trends are emerging; 9.9 Does tropical agronomy need modelling?
10. Donors, Experts and Consultants;10.1 Development aid; a short and mainly African history ; 10.2 Agricultural development; 10.3 Three donor-assisted programmes
11. Can African farming be improved? 11.1 The African farmer and his potential for change; 11.2 Extension: organisation, methods and education; 11.3 Can agronomic research help agriculture? 11.4 Are we missing essential elements?
APPENDICES:
A1. C.T. de Wit's analysis of plant competition; A1.1 Two species competing for the same space; A1.2 Crowding for space in monoculture, a yield-density function; A1.3 Crowding for partly the same space; A1.4 Competition in natural plant populations;
A2. Shifting cultivation and recurrent cropping; A2.1 A cautionary note; A2.2 Shifting cultivation; A2.3 Recurrent cropping A3. Factor analysis A4. Nutrient dynamics of alley cropping; A4.1 Another cautionary note; A4.2 Nutrient flows and nutrient sks; A4.3 The nutrient budget for a 'poor soil'; A4.4 A long term alley cropping trial; A4.5 Some tinkering involved; A4.6 Maize and cassava; A4.7 Summing up A5. More farmer technologies; A5.1 Land use systems (or how to exploit a difficult environment); A5.2 Manipulating a crop; A5.3 Crop processing A6. Papers presented at the 2005 Symposium of the International Farming systems Association A7. Quantification of cotton growth and development; A7.1 Establishment of plant structure; A7.2 Growth of stem girth and weight; A7.3 Numbers of squares and bolls A8. Organ growth and assimilate partitioning; Introduction A8.1 Models of the Wageningen School; A8.2 The CROPGRO and CERES models ; A8.3 The ARS Cotton Production Model; A8.4 Summing up A9. Calculation of potential assimilation, dry matter production and yield; A9.1 Potential assimilation; A9.2 Potential biomass production; A9.3 Potential crop yield;
Literature cited