Indigenous Knowledge

Jeffery W. Bentley (Ph.D., University of Arizona) is an agricultural anthropologist with a lifelong interest in farmer creativity, and language. He has worked extensively with farmers and agricultural scientists in Latin America, Africa, South Asia, and Portugal. Previously at New Mexico State and Zamorano Universities, he currently works at Agro-Insight. Jeff has consulted for CABI, CIP, CIMMYT, and the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB), among others. In the early 2000s he played a key role setting up the CABI plant clinics. He lives in Cochabamba, Bolivia. David A. Cleveland is a human ecologist who has done research and development project work on sustainable agrifood systems with farmers and gardeners around the world. His research and teaching have focused on sustainable, small-scale agrifood systems, including plant breeding and conservation of crop genetic diversity, and local and scientific knowledge and collaboration between farmers and scientists. His current research and teaching focus is on food system localization and diet change to improve health, mitigate anthropogenic climate change and environmental degradation, and promote food and climate justice, including at the University of California, in California, and globally. Paul Van Mele (PhD, Wageningen University) is an agricultural scientist who has managed agricultural R&D projects dealing with sustainable agriculture across the global South for over three decades. Since 2002, Paul has spearheaded farmer-to-farmer training video, coordinated research on video-mediated learning and taken it to scale. He runs his own company, Agro-Insight, and co-founded the non-profit organisation Access Agriculture to support South-South learning on agroecological transformation. Daniela Soleri is an ethnoecologist whose research is on local and scientific knowledge systems in small scale agriculture and gardens, and collaboration between formal scientists and gardeners and farmers. This includes research with communities around the world in quantifying farmer practices, documenting risk assessment and cultural identity related to seeds, and investigating new semi-formal seed systems. She teaches a class at UCSB on "citizen" and community science, and is currently working with seed and garden activists and scientists to investigate crop diversity and adaptation in California food gardens.