ABSTRACT
Current attempts to modernise agriculture by African governments underplay the importance of agricultural biodiversity to farming and the local or traditional knowledge that underpins it. While some studies concerning indigenous agriculture make no distinction between knowledge and practice, others are dismissive. Agriculture, in referring both to the cultivation of the land and the culture of the people, is also both constituent and reflective of that social change. The usage of indigenous varieties or landraces is not arbitrary; rather, they are chosen with particular characteristics in mind. They are farmer selected and manipulated and so in defining a landrace, human selection remains the determining feature. Farmers are acutely aware of the seeds they use and the crops they plant, differentiating one variety from another, their characteristics and planting niches. Soil fertility also has an association with plants of a certain type.
