Monograph #53

Seeds of Knowledge examines the process of knowledge construction among rice farmers - the cultivators of lowland irrigated rice fields on the north coast of West Java. It tells how these farmers received, developed, and then transmitted knowledge over a period of two years between the 1990 dry season, when they had experienced a severe outbreak of white rice stem borers, and the end of the 1989-1990 rainy season. It is the story of how the introduction of Integrated Pest management principles led to changes in the farmers' knowledge of pests and diseases and, subsequently, to changes in their practices of farming as they incorporated the new ideas into a substantial body of local knowledge that they modified and developed through time.

Reviewer's Comments"....This sympathetic ethnographic account of the farmers' struggles will be absorbing reading for anyone interested in the history of Indonesian agriculture. But the central themes about the process by which new knowledge is gained and then passed on to others at the micro level of the village will challenge and provoke anyone interested in issues of social change and development, especially in Indonesia." -John Maxwell, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies

430pp.
*Cloth $39.00; ISBN 0938692-80-1
Paper $28.00; ISBN 0938692-81-X
Cover design by MetaGlyfix

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*Cloth bindings are library serial version: no jacket, no cover photo; blank with foil stamp on spine. Paperback includes cover design & photo

Yale Southeast Asia Studies is a non-profit publishing entity at Yale University.