An interview with Carla Roncoli. When bringing new ideas of agricultural practices to the local level, many highlight the value of local knowledge. The willingness to adapt to new practices, and the farmers’ ability to choose in limited situations when decision-making is economically, politically and culturally embedded, are much discussed. Are the farmers the real agents of their own lives, or subordinates of the political and economical structures? How about the fight of local knowledge versus the praised scientific information and technical innovations of the global North? Farmers do have the ability to be relatively flexible, though commercial agriculture may set the farmers in a more vulnerable position, states Dr. Carla Roncoli from the Emory University. As an example, Dr. Roncoli mentions how concentrating on one or two cash crops, instead of previously practised diverse agriculture, sets the farmers on a higher risk. This happened to the farmers in Burkina Faso when theybegan to concentrate on cotton production. It is a dominating system demanding commitment from the farmer, thus reducing the flexibility of the farmer for choosing alternatives when the resources are scarce.