The oral presentations for this session were moderated by Dr. Regina Birner from the University of Hohenheim who introduced the speakers. The first presentation was given by Kewin Bach Friis Kamelarczyk and he spoke about Indigenous and scientific knowledge. His research was focussed on local verses scientific knowledge about local forest change dynamics in the Zambian copperbelt. According to the speaker, both local knowledge and scientific findings should be integrated because they can not really be separated if success is to be achieved practically. He noted that the Zambian forest policy promotes the use of different kinds of knowledge in the management and use of forests. His research found that scientific knowledge is mostly mixed with other types of knowledge without giving actual source of information and that local people rely on nararatives which are mostly subjective perceptions based on experience and observations in the past. In most cases, he observed that these local ideas have not been documented.

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.