Scouting and documentation of the innovations is the first step towards the fulfillment of the mission of NIF. Scouting involves extensive fieldwork, travel in rural and urban areas, search for ‘odd balls’ -- the experimenters – and local community and knowledge experts in the society. The process aims at:

Scouting and Documentation function has faced many other challenges such as communication with thousands of knowledge providers in local language, working with very small transient team of  staff, pursuing with various collaborators about the need to improve the quality of  documentation, getting their PIC, creating awareness about the National Register, networking with various state governments to create awareness about national campaigns, and matching expectations of Honey Bee network and NIF’s capacity to deliver with all its limitations. Information is disseminated to all the district collectors, MPs, and a large number of NGOs, educational organizations and other potential partners who can help us to discover the hidden genius of our society. The kind of traditional knowledge scouted by NIF is briefly discussed in Table A and some examples of creative traditional knowledge and contemporary problem solving are given in Table B.

Scouting and Documentation function has also supported dissemination function so far by way of coordinating the media coverage of NIF’s activities by BBC world, NDTV, Zee, Star, Discovery and many other channels as well as print media see ‘NIF in News’.

Explanatory Note on Scouting and Documentation of Grassroots Innovations

Scouting and Documentation being the most important function of NIF, we provide an explanatory note on the working and methodology: 

To scout grassroots green innovators and traditional knowledge holders who have solved a local problem entirely through their own effort without any outside help requires a massive campaign around the country. The knowledge so documented requires Prior Informed Consent (PIC) of the innovators and Traditional Knowledge holders, besides verifications in the case of those chosen for commendation, awards and support for value addition and commercialization. NIF has drawn upon a variety of approaches for scouting and documentation evolved by the Honey Bee network for its national campaign for over last decade and a half. 

The documentation and dissemination are, to some extent, simultaneous processes. Hence, the dissemination of documented innovations and traditional knowledge became an integral part of most of the methods used for documentation of grassroots innovations. The Honey Bee network has been able to mobilise a large number of students from rural (and some urban) colleges, rural youths, grassroots functionaries of rural development and other departments of the state government, teachers and development workers and individual volunteers, or what we may call NGIs (Non-Governmental Individuals), for documentation and dissemination. 

Various methodologies and approaches used for documentation and dissemination are: 

Initially about 100-120 student volunteers from various Gandhian institutions in Gujarat are selected every year by the Honey Bee Network for about two months during the summer vacation. They are given simple orientation training in small groups for scouting and documenting innovations and traditional knowledge. They are encouraged to appreciate the grassroots innovations created by their family members and neighbours in the village to begin with. The students are than asked to narrate some of their own experiences, which were interesting, intriguing or inspiring. By underlining the ones that we find counter intuitive or less obvious, we convey what we are looking for. The process of training gets demystified and the purpose of scouting becomes clear because the examples of what we are looking for are drawn from the scout’s own experience. The students then survey different villages. They also collect addresses of a few farmers who either know about the innovator concerned and/or have fields adjoining the fields of the innovative farmer. We write letters to these contacts later to have a first round of confirmation. Later, another student/field investigator revisits each site to avoid any error in the process. The best scouts are given prizes in the annual Honey Bee network meeting. 

Competitions have been organised in various parts of India among students and grassroots functionaries of the state government. Survey forms have been developed to seek brief information about the innovations scouted by the participants. Application forms, procedure and other details are explained through meetings in schools/colleges. Voluntary teachers coordinate such contests in their schools and ensure that students work in the spirit of fulfilling their curiosity to learn from informal knowledge experts in our society rather than to earn a small honorarium. For launching competitions among the grassroots functionaries, workshops are organised to explain the purpose of scouting campaigns, as well as to expose the participants about the earlier experiences in scouting. A committee of three persons evaluates the entries sent in by the participants and the winners are awarded prizes and certificates in network meetings. Some of the outstanding innovators identified through competitions are also honoured at such meetings. Many students and functionaries can participate in this activity. Revolving trophies are given to the best district official/development agency which scouts the most interesting innovations and traditional knowledge. We have not succeeded, so far, in institutionalising such a process in many states, but efforts are on.  

Though one finds that the same, or similar, traditional knowledge, and in some cases, even innovations, are recorded from more than one place, we do not discourage this. This helps us to learn about the capability of local communities and individuals to evolve similar solutions to same problems independently, autonomously and simultaneously. In some cases, such a knowledge or innovation may indeed have diffused from one place to another. Our experience so far has been that several innovations and traditional knowledge are discovered from unexpected quarters within a very short span of time through such competitions. 

There are many visionaries and experts at the regional level who do not get due credit and recognition just because they did not publish their ideas in English. As a result, many times it so happens that we end up giving credit for ‘reinventing the wheel’. One of the purposes of scanning the old, vernacular literature is to bring these unaccredited knowledge systems to light. We have collected old books from civil society, old institutions and stalls, NGOs and vendors of old books. We are trying to reprint some of these books. Particular mention may be made of a book by Gangaben, who became a widow at an early age and published a compendium of 2080 formulae for self employment based on local knowledge, way back in 1898 in Gujarati language. 

Agricultural fairs are vibrant traditional institutions in rural India, where people assemble in large numbers, for religious or cultural celebrations. Honey Bee network members participate in such fairs by putting up stalls. Many innovative volunteers sometimes set-up and run these stalls. In addition, a computer for accessing Honey Bee database, posters, leaflets and other publications in local languages are kept at the stall. Many farmers, artisans, community leaders and professionals visit the stalls and get information about the innovations developed by other farmers. While accessing this knowledge base, they also share their own innovations with Honey Bee network members. 

To generate a lateral learning environment among the grassroots innovators, SRISTI has initiated the concept of Shodh Sankal - chain of experimenting farmers. The idea is to bring together experimenting farmers and discuss the results of trials that farmers have taken up on their own to solve various local problems. This discussion also enhances the esteem for local knowledge system. It is possible to generate `lateral learning’ among farmers by sharing innovative practices found suitable in one region with the farmers in another similar region after on-farm testing/trials, if necessary. This could help to speed up the process of technological change in regions where formal technology generation system has not been very successful, such as dry regions, mountainous regions and other disadvantaged areas. Even in less risk prone regions, it cannot be assumed that an innovative technology will diffuse on its own just because some farmers in a village have evolved it. 

Based on the experiences of several years, the network launched the concept of Shodh Yatra in 1998. The journey of exploration is organised on foot from one village to another for 8-10 days, covering a maximum of 250 kms during extreme summer as well as winter. Innovative farmers, artisans, students and scientists join the Shodh Yatra and walk with the objective of participatory learning and dissemination of information, as well as spreading experimental and inventive ethics among communities. Local experts, whether in traditional knowledge or contemporary innovations, are honoured at their doorstep in these villages. The Honey Bee database is shared with farmers in the local language through laptop computers and print publications. A mobile exhibition on medicinal plants, posters, artefacts, working models of innovations, etc, are used for making the presentation more relevant to the local context. Biodiversity contests are organised among children while recipe contests are organised among women in some of the villages (particularly with focus on such food recipes in which at least one uncultivated plant has been used).  

Unlike the agricultural practices, the search for artisanal and farm machinery innovations is far more complex. One village may have several hundred farmers but only one or two artisans. To meet 100 artisans, one may have to survey 50-100 villages. However, over a period of time we discovered that social network of artisans is reasonably strong. Once we identified an innovative artisan or mechanic, we asked him to look for others of his kind. This process has helped in discovering many innovators. 

Many newspapers and magazines have written about the innovations and traditional knowledge recognised by Honey Bee network. Some of the innovators have approached us after reading about other innovators. This process is further strengthened through circulation of posters of competition among various institutions and stakeholders. A very small number of innovations are also scouted through Internet where existing websites (www.sristi.org, www.nifindia.org, www.nif.org.in, www.gian.org, www.honeybee.org, www.indiainnovates.com) of the network have popularised the missions of NIF and other collaborating institutions.  

Practices collected from various sources reflect a variety of knowledge systems, problem solving approaches, sectoral areas of technology, and above all, a variety of ethical approaches to evolution and dissemination of local solutions. The technological solutions have been recorded from various fields such as agronomy, plant varieties, plant protection, crop production, soil and water conservation, farm implements, veterinary and animal husbandry, poultry keeping, vegetative dye, forest and other natural resource management, leather tanning, energy generation, transport, general utilities, farm and small scale machineries, household utilities, etc. The methods described above are complementary to each other and are some times followed together. The practices scouted or documented, irrespective of the methods used, are verified by writing letters to the innovators, followed by a personal visit from the team. Innovators are encouraged to correct the practices and interpretations are made from the information provided by them. Verified practices are stored in the computerised database with the names and addresses of the innovators, as well as communicators. If the same practice is reported from other sources without variation, the names of the other providers are also added in the same record. However, the success rate of a particular scouting method may not be the same at every place; it varies over time and space and, of course, the social group attempting to use these methods. 

The network collaborators and coordinators of GIAN play a very important role in helping to attain a record of respectable number of innovations and traditional knowledge through their active involvement with the network. Our Collaborators and Honey Network Members form an integral part of the Scouting and Documentation process. Through their network of scouts and volunteers they provide us with the necessary reach into the interiors of the geographical regions where they are based, which we otherwise would have found difficult to reach, being based in Ahemdabad. From time to time we share our experience during various meetings of our network members and discuss new ideas, views and problems and make necessary incorporations/changes in the S&D process so that it remains updated and fruitful.

 Table A

Traditional Knowledge --  Blending the old with the new

Nations and societies which carry a legacy of ancient cultures and knowledge systems have a unique advantage – they can harness ancient wisdom and complement it with modern scientific thought processes in their march towards prosperity and modernity. Very often, drawing upon the reserves of traditional knowledge banks obviates the need for re-inventing the wheel. Combining traditional knowledge with new discoveries calls for a polycentric approach to cope with the challenges presented by the environment. These coping strategies rely fundamentally on traditional knowledge systems, constantly interacting with the contemporary knowledge, institutions and cultures from around the world.

Traditional knowledge is not something static, it evolved over a long period of time and passed on, as if, in a fossilised form, by or to the subsequent generations. There are three aspects of traditional knowledge which deserve attention in the context of making India a knowledge-intensive society, trying to become a global leader in sustainable technologies: 

Table B

Examples of Innovative ways of solving local problems

Presented below are select technologies from different parts of the country, some of which NIF has identified for possible commercial use. It is our contention that NIF’s National Register is more extensive than any such database, not only in India, but also anywhere in the world.  

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