Estudio de comercialización del producto

In descriptions of “medicinal knowledge,” this paper uses an epistemic relativist perspective, which assumes our knowledge of reality is always questionable, and defines knowledge as what is accepted as real by an individual or culture at a given time. This contrasts with an epistemic realist perspective, which assumes that we can know the truth about the world with certainty and therefore might classify medicinal perceptions from any culture as “beliefs.” The use of a relativist perspective sets the tone for discussions of “knowledge” which have not, in most cases, been tested by modern science.

Table 4.12: Change in consumption based on changes in production, knowledge and attitudes, Kiambu, Kenya.

∆ Frequency ∆ Amount (g/day)

n=154 n=77

∆ days child sick in last 2 weeks

All variables listed were treated as fixed effects; analyses also controlled for district and village as random effects.

The source of medicinal knowledge in the study populations is important for several reasons: first, to understand baseline knowledge so that nutrition-focused marketing messages could be better-adapted to existing knowledge, second, to de-termine whether recent promotional information might be responsible for chang-ing beliefs or knowledge about medicinal uses of TAVs, and third, to document

Table 4.13: Change in consumption based on changes in production, knowledge and attitudes, Arusha, Tanzania.

∆ Frequency ∆ Amount (g/day)

n=154 n=116

∆ days child sick in last 2 weeks

All variables listed were treated as fixed effects; analyses also controlled for district and village as random effects.

genuinely indigenous uses of the plants in order to (a) catalogue ethnobotanical knowledge and (b) generate hypotheses about plant bioactivity that can be tested in the laboratory, which could benefit other people.

The source of knowledge, however, was often a difficult question for people to

answer, particularly for knowledge that they may have had for a long time. This points to the hypothesis that if people can definitively report/identify a source, then knowledge is more likely to be recent, and if they cannot, the knowledge is more likely to be old or perhaps indigenous.

Focus group discussions provided a good indication of where knowledge might have come from. In Kiambu, medicinal knowledge for the majority of the (Kikuyu) population seemed to be coming from doctors, radio, TV, and the marketplace.

That is, it was mostly not indigenous. Many FGD participants reported that they heard information from doctors, saying “Local herbalists/doctors - they say to eat TAVs to avoid the pharmacy.” There was also a popular television show on which a doctor talked about the health benefits of TAVs. Although most Kiambu farmers did not have a television, they knew of the doctor. Much of the advice they reported hearing had to do with diabetes, blood pressure, cancer, and other chronic diseases. In contrast, the stomach ache treatment was more likely than the rest to be indigenous knowledge, because many people talked about it in terms of personal daily experience, rather than something they heard from a doctor or herbalist. People talked about nightshade leaves being “soft” - easy to digest - so they could be eaten more often than kales with fewer ill effects.

Proximity to Nairobi, the tribal melting pot of the nation, certainly would have facilitated spread of traditions from one Kenyan group to another. Luo, native to Western Kenya, have strong traditions of using wild leaves as medicine and sell TAVs in the Nairobi markets as dawa - medicine. Modern medical ailments and advice appear to be mixed with Luo and Luhya, and perhaps other, traditional practices.

The medicinal knowledge seemed to be a source of enthusiasm among the farm-ers - they seem excited that the former weeds in their farm might be useful in such

varied and interesting ways, and also that they might be able to profit from it.

The profit/marketing motive may have driven many Kikuyu farmers to spread the new about of TAVs to their neighbors. One man said “My grandfather used to sell these as medicine for a big profit - why not us?” While the Kikuyu are known in Kenya for being entrepreneurial, it also seemed that not only money was motivating them; they also felt a sense of pride and believed in what they were trying to sell. This impression was gained from observations in focus group dis-cussions, where on numerous occasions farmers said they themselves are the ones telling their neighbors about how healthy TAVs are, either in terms of nutrients or testimonials of diseases cured, or both.

In Arusha, in contrast, the vegetables are not new. People talked about knowl-edge from doctors and from the TF Project when they were discussing anemia;

but for most of the other diseases, it was difficult to get a clear picture of exactly where they learned the information they volunteered . That could mean that the source of knowledge was indigenous - that the farmers had learned the medicinal uses of TAVs so long ago they can’t pinpoint when or where they learned it; it was just “known,” ingrained in the culture. They described specific techniques to prepare and use the TAVs to treat eye problems and problems related to malnutri-tion (using local indigenous names for diseases associated with malnutrimalnutri-tion - for example, several different names for different kinds of diarrhea), and no one said they learned those techniques from an outside source. The Arusha farmers were very clear, however, that the uses of TAVs for diabetes and blood pressure were not indigenous - and also, very few people reported those uses (about 2% in both baseline and follow-up).

The knowledge changes observed in Kiambu related to NCDs were probably not related to the program, because messages specific to NCD prevention were

not a focus of the promotion efforts; rather, they were probably due to other simlutaneously-occurring promotions from Nairobi. In Arusha, change in knowl-edge was related to program messages about iron content of TAVs. Information about anemia prevention seemed to catch on quickly there - more so than in Ki-ambu. This could be related to greater indigenous knowledge of TAVs as a treat-ment for anemia in Arusha.

The illnesses people treated with TAVs may also say something about the prevalence of illness. In Kiambu, about three times as many people used plants for diabetes as for anemia, but in Arusha, it was the opposite.