The note examines the transfer ofknowledge from one generation to the next, and from countryto country, through trading ties, and social interactionswhich has raised knowledge sharing activities within Africa,and elsewhere. Such activities have reinforced theuniversality of indigenous knowledge, and, despitegeographical differences, the note looks at the Sodic LandsReclamation Project in India, as a good example ofintegration of traditional knowledge into Bank-supportedoperations. The first challenge the project presented wasthe treatment of high build-up of salts in the fields, withhigh concentrations of exchangeable sodium in which finersoil particles are dispersed, but where water and air cannotpenetrate. These sodic soils are toxic to plants, andadversely affect agriculture, human, and plant health. Theapplication of traditional knowledge, i.e., spreadinggypsum, building bunds, leaching the soil, startingmulti-cropping, green manuring and crop rotation, as well asusing compost and plowing the land, maintained a continuousground cover, through intensive cropping, which protectedthe soils from a return of surface salts. The result was asubstantive reduction in the damage caused by brown planthoppers from 49 percent down to 2 percent. This wasconducive to innovative strategies, drawing upon indigenousresources, and knowledge about agricultural practices,practices institutionalized by the formation of a FarmersField School, community participation in irrigation, andtraining provided to women through the farmers school inagricultural practices.
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