Learning from the past: Nubian traditional knowledge and agricultural resilience, crop choices and endangered cultural heritage

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This project proposes new outputs for research generated by the 'Sustainability and subsistence systems in a changing Sudan' project (2013 - 2016). This project explored how comparisons of present-day and ancient crop choices can inform on risk management within agricultural strategies of small-scale settlements along the middle Nile valley. Interviews with Nubian farmers revealed dramatic, previously undocumented, shifts in crops grown in the hyper-arid region of northern Sudan since the mid-20th century. Traditional agricultural knowledge is rapidly disappearing with some information remembered only by elderly farmers. Several cereals and pulses that were the most important food crops grown by villagers until recent decades, but are now little used, are comparatively tolerant to aridity and heat. Their presence in the regional archaeobotanical record also reveals their long-term use, further suggesting their environmental suitability. The 'Learning from the past: Nubian traditional knowledge and agricultural resilience, crop choices and endangered cultural heritage' project aims to:- Advocate the importance of using traditional agricultural knowledge to help create strategies for agricultural resilience within international development and broader agricultural research programmes. - To highlight the potential role of increasingly little used cereals and pulses as subsistence crops in marginal environments.- To promote the way ethnobotanical and archaeobotanical approaches can contribute to the agricultural research and NGO sector in Sudan, the UK and internationally. - To preserve traditional Nubian agriculture knowledge that can be considered as endangered cultural heritage and simultaneously as practical knowledge relevant to future agricultural resilience.These aims will be achieved through the creation of a booklet 'Changing Nubian agriculture and crops; the example of Ernetta Island' and the organisation of workshops to be held in the UK and Sudan with NGOs and agricultural researchers. The booklet will provide a new format for disseminating the project results to both existing and new audiences. The booklet will provide a novel and direct way to engage with and benefit local farming Nubian communities in the Abri/Ernetta region, 700km north of Khartoum, and aims to help preserve Nubian agricultural heritage and knowledge for future generations. Farmers also expressly requested the creation of such a booklet, and local participants will be consulted on the booklet content. Once printed, the booklet will be distributed in villages and aims to conserve these 'oral histories' and local ecological knowledge for future generations. The booklet will focus on details of traditional crops and cultivation, agricultural practices and foodstuffs and how these have been changing in recent decades. Associated material culture such as traditional kitchens and less tangible cultural heritage such the daily routines connected with older modes of agricultural practices will also be documented. A summary of the ancient history of crops grown in the region will be added to provide a long-term context to crops grown today and in the recent past. Preserving indigenous knowledge about local crops, cultivation and cuisine has implications for future food security through offering unique insights into local adaptive solutions. An interdisciplinary cross-sector workshop 'Traditional agricultural knowledge, 'forgotten' crops and agricultural resilience' held in London aims to further promote the way ethnobotanical and archaeobotanical approaches can contribute to the agricultural research and the NGO/NPO sector, using the booklet as a case study. Developing ways - and highlighting the importance - of conserving traditional agricultural knowledge is vital to managing present and future agricultural resilience to seasonal, annual and long-term climate variation and change.