Ricardo Salazar (middle)-TEC
A Costa Rican man is studying how to improve the agriculture of the indigenous people of Talamanca from a university in France.
Ricardo Salazar, from the University of Montpellier, focuses his PhD research on how to optimize the management of organic production systems in the mountains.
This research combines the ancestral knowledge of Costa Rican indigenous populations with innovative agricultural assessment techniques.
Salazar is a professor and researcher at the Costa Rican Technological School of Agribusiness (TEC), and was able to go to France thanks to a scholarship by the Institutional Improvement Project (PMI), financed with part of the loan by the World Bank (WB) aimed at improving infrastructure, teaching and research at Costa Rican public universities.
The researcher explained that many families in tropical countries are economically dependent on agroforestry systems for their income.
The economic potential of agroforestry farms has not been well studied. The low yields and low prices of the main products obtained, such as cocoa and bananas, have threatened the permanence of these systems,”
said Salazar.
The research is expected to be completed in December this year. It will also provide tools to help farmers improve technical criteria, profitability and their crops.
Data collection in the field took place in four periods between March 2015 and April 2016 on 20 agroforestry farms located in four communities (Amubri, Dururpe, Katsi and Watsi) of the Bribri Indigenous Territory of Talamanca (southeastern area of the country).