Towards a New Approach for Understanding Interactions of Technology with Environment and Society in Small-scale Rice Farming

(eds M.C.S. Wopereis et al.) 355 and innovation, and ways to build upon these processes or to integrate them with scientific technology development. Farmer technologies, such as farmer varieties, are the result of long innovation trajectories. These trajectories are shaped by interactions among agroecological, socio-economic and cultural factors and it is therefore essential to understand such interactions when involving farmers in technology development or building upon farmer technology development. The need for a more decentralized technology development approach (for, e.g., varieties) with a larger role for farmers has become even clearer (Dorward et al., 2007; Efisue et al., 2008; Nuijten et al., 2009; Mokuwa et al., 2012). For example, Mokuwa et al. (2012) provide evidence that farmer rice varieties can be widely adaptable, as a considerable number performed well under very different ecological conditions and are therefore not restricted to the locality where they were developed. This means that farmers, next to researchers, equally produce technologies that may be relevant for farming over large regions. Introduction