When is a cow like a test-tube?

On the slopes of Mt. Kenya and the terraced hills of Nepal local farmers are using their cattle in much the same way as scientists use test tubes.

They may be illiterate and continents apart. And there isn’t a laboratory for hundreds of miles. But when it comes to animal nutrition they can teach western scientists a thing or two about the feeding value of the diverse range of tree species found in the hills around them.

While western laboratories break down and then analyse the separate nutrients within tree leaves the farmers feed the leaves of different species to their livestock and see how healthily they thrive, how long it satisfies their appetites, and how productive they become.

In fact scientist, Dr Fergus Sinclair estimates that the farmers in Nepal typically know the nutritional value of more than 100 trees.

This may show a sophistication previously unappreciated by western scientists. But it also explodes a conventionally held theory long adhered to by anthropologists.

They always believed that knowledge gained by farmers in one area was unique to that area. That their understanding of the environment was culturally determined and so very different from one locality to another. Dr Sinclair’’s research shows that, in fact, there are common underlying patterns in local environmental knowledge across continents.

Now Dr. Sinclair is about to put his controversial views to the annual Festival of Science held by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

In an unprecedented move the natural scientist from the University of Wales in Bangor has been asked to explain his ideas to anthropologists.

“I think a sacred cow is about to be sacrificed” said Dr Sinclair, Director of Research at the School of Agriculture and Forest Sciences.

“When you look deeply enough it can be seen that the rural people’s knowledge largely complements what is known by international scientists and can help plug gaps in our knowledge of trees and fragile hillside environments.”

But this is a general finding about local environmental knowledge applicable across environments. Another example involves people living on the forest edge in Ghana who grow coffee amongst timer trees and farmers in Thailand growing tea in the forest.

Both know that if they cut the stem of some trees, water emerges from the surface of the cut stem. They believe this shows that these trees release water that irrigates nearby plants a phenomenon known as hydraulic lift, which is now the subject of scientific research.

Dr Sinclair’s research stems from his early experience on a VSO project in Zambia where he found himself expected to teach Zambians about their own agriculture based on knowledge he had gained from an English University education.

He abandoned the classroom and instead took his students out into the bush to find out what local farmers were doing. By asking the farmers simple questions about what they were up to they learned about the local farming traditions and how they were responding to new challenges.

He was staggered by the sophistication of the knowledge of the local people and their understanding of their environment and the importance of trees to sustain the agriculture.

Over the past decade Dr. Sinclair and his colleagues have developed a computer system for collecting an evaluating local ecological knowledge that is now being used by researchers around the world to make their work more locally relevant.

The research was funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) forestry (FRP), livestock (LPP) and natural resources systems (NRSP) programmes but DFID except no responsibility for any outputs produced or opinions expressed.