Document(s) 10 de 38

Abstract: Three periods of major genetic erosion have occurred in Zimbabwe's recent history. The genepool of traditional crops has also been continuously enriched by geneflow across the countries borders through trading of grain and exchange of seeds. Geneflow, in the form of seed distribution, is continuing in the present day but is now largely formalized and is being carried out by government and NGO agencies. Control over genetic resources has thus shifted from being a common property right to being under the corporate control of such bodies as: drought relief operations, international agricultural research centers and multinational seed and fertilizer companies. Notwithstanding this, female, small-scale farmers have persisted with the growing of traditional crops and have distinguished themselves as 'keepers of diversity'. Despite the urgent need of farming families to grow cash crops in order to survive in the market economy, women have emphasized the role played by the traditional crops in ensuring household food security.

High within-crop diversity is concentrated mainly in indigenous sorghum, millets, legumes cucurbits and traditional maize crops. These food crops provide a varied diet, have good storage potential and are well adapted to environmental stress conditions. Due to the demands of the cash economy, which is increasingly impinging on the autonomy of the small-scale farmers, the best resources are devoted to cash crops, more specifically maize. The traditional crops are consequently grown on the poorer soils with minimal inputs and almost exclusively by women farmers, who are concerned with their families' food security. Recurrent droughts over the past decade have caused farmers to loose much of their seed stocks of traditional varieties. Drought relief packages which were meant to alleviate the food insecurity, have almost exclusively contained hybrid maize seed produced by multinational companies and have not addressed the needs of farmers living in marginal areas where drought tolerant crops are advised.

By building on and strengthening local social structures and by addressing development priorities identified by farmers themselves, such as water harvesting and seed exchange programs, we hope to make in situ conservation an adaptable and dynamic process in which genetic resources are considered to be part of the communities' cultural heritage with farmers being firmly in control of the resource base. At the same time, such an approach should serve to stimulate the ongoing debates around improved local food security for resource-poor farmers.

Introduction

Genetic erosion of traditional crop biodiversity

Movement of germplasm: the historical context

Figure 1. Movements of crop germplasm in Zimbabwe over the last century. arrows indicate the major gene highways.

Historical background

In 1890, the British South Africa Company marched with the 'Pioneer Column' into Zimbabwe in search of gold. When gold was not found in sufficient quantities over the next two years, Matabeleland was invaded, the king, Lobengula, was killed and the cattle and other wealth were distributed among the settlers (Rukuni, 1990). During the period from 1893 onwards, differences between the Ndebele and the settlers became sharply focussed as a result of forced labor being exacted to make gold mining more profitable. Most of the remaining national Ndebele cattle herd was captured or shot by the British South Africa Company in 1894 (Beach, 1975) and since this was the principal medium through which Ndebele and Shona people stored wealth, serious conflict was inevitable. Together these events resulted in an uprising which spread across the country during 1896-97. Military records report that the two principal causes of the rebellion were:

1. the incompleteness of the conquest of the Ndebele nation in 1893;
2. the incapacity of an ..... aristocratic race ..... to accept their natural place in a peaceful and settled civilized community [italics added].

The records further document the systematic destruction of local grain and food reserves and livestock by military forces of the British South Africa Company. A few months later it was reported that:

the chief enemy now to be contended with and feared in Matabeleland is starvation. The scarcity of grain is so great that starvation is imminent. ..... in many instances grain has been hurriedly buried in the veld for fear of it being stolen ..... so that a great part has become mouldy and uneatable." It continues that " ..... The pacification of the country having been thus secured, ..... and by the liberal distribution of seed grain, the company has endeavored to secure as much land as possible (for) grain cultivation. ..... It may however be considered right that the natives who are responsible for the rebellion should be allowed to suffer ..... (British South Africa Company reports, 1896-97) [italics added]..

This report indicates not only the immoral and unjust occupation of tribal lands by a mining company seeking to increase its profits, but also indicates one of the most serious genetic erosion events of the century in southern Africa. In addition it shows that for the first time, control over seed grain was removed from the ownership of people as a common property right and was transferred to institutionalized corporate control, in this case the British South Africa Company. It will be shown that the pattern of transfer of control over seeds from the people who developed the genetic stocks to those who have financial interests in controlling access to seeds has continued to the present day.

A major condition for peace was that the Ndebele would return to their ancestral lands, but owing to their agriculturally favorable position, these lands had already been granted to settler farmers and the Ndebele could only return as tenants or laborers (Beach, 1975). In the central and eastern parts of the country, Mashonaland, the local people were similarly dispossessed of ancestral lands. This was especially serious for the Shona, as land and soil are intimately connected with their spirituality (Lan, 1985). People were forced to leave fertile lands in high rainfall areas for the low lying, hot and dry marginal areas which form the periphery of the country. These areas were generally uninhabitable due to the presence of malaria and tsetse fly. Even as early as 1912, the tribal trust lands were considered to be congested (Yudelman, 1964). At present these marginal areas, where dryland cropping is considered to be an extremely risky undertaking (Farming Systems Research Unit, 1994), are still occupied by nearly 60% of rural Zimbabweans (Moyo, 1995).

During the first few decades of the century, agricultural production and marketing were still in the hands of black farmers. The settlers were mainly interested in exploiting the country's mineral wealth and were largely ignorant of local climatic conditions, soils and appropriate crops (Palmer, 1977). By 1902, agricultural production by Shona farmers exceeded 70% of total cash earnings and only 13% of Shona men had entered paid employment compared to 48% of Ndebele men (Arrighi, 1973). A few years later, with the failure to find adequate supplies of gold, the British South Africa Company turned its attention to agriculture. Policies were established to promote agriculture by white farmers. This lead to a rapid increase in the production of maize, tobacco and cattle, and African land and labor became primary targets for dispossession (Palmer, 1977; Palmer and Parsons, 1977).

Page and Page (1991) have shown how local agricultural practices were regarded with ambivalence by the settler community. They describe how an intensive ecological survey in Northern Rhodesia⁴ considered that indigenous farming technologies under natural conditions were inherently sound and recommended that the "agricultural department investigate local practices before .....attempting to improve them" (Lewin, 1936; Trapnell and Clothier, 1957). At the same time, economic and political interests in Southern Rhodesia reviled traditional agriculture as "primitive agriculture that wastes and destroys" (Alvord, 1928). Indigenous agriculture incorporated land rotations, systems of mixed cropping consisting of sorghum and millets intercropped with legumes and cucurbits, use of leguminous leaf litter and compost to improve soil fertility, maintenance of beneficial trees in crop fields and zero or minimum tillage using the hand hoe -- all methods which were ecologically balanced with the prevailing environmental conditions. Alvord did his best to discourage these methods of organic farming. He introduced the plow and strongly encouraged farmers to do monocropping and to concentrate on cash crops, especially maize (Page and Page, 1991). Although there is little documented evidence, it is clear that under the above circumstances of intense external cultural negation, of "extension by persuasion" (Alvord, 1950), there would be an appreciable level of genetic erosion of traditional crop germplasm.

To mobilize the labor required for commercial production, an intense campaign of taxes was initiated which would force freeholders to become laborers (Palmer, 1977). Subsequently, by 1930, legislation was enacted which ensured white dominance of agricultural markets by excluding black producers (Yudelman, 1964). Under these conditions there was little possibility for black farmers ever to accumulate more than they consumed but it freed the state from having to pay their workers more than a mere subsistence salary (Lan, 1985).

As commercial agriculture grew in prominence (Muir, 1984)⁵, agricultural research was focussed on the needs of the white community who provided the financial support (Kupfuma, 1995). Consequently there was no research agenda to address the needs of black farmers, the idea being that they should slowly be brought up to the level of intensive commercial agriculture, although this was clearly impossible given the reduced resource base and the diminishing availability of male labor in the rural areas. Maize was needed as a staple food for mine workers and for the growing urban population and by 1950 Rhodesia was proud to announce its first commercially certified hybrid maize variety (Rukuni, 1990). The country became an exporter of maize through the surplus production of maize on commercial farms. Black resistance to the loss of ancestral lands, poorly paid wage labor in urban areas, on the mines and commercial farms, unpaid female subsistence labor in the rural areas and the enforced disruption of long established agricultural practices mounted and culminated in the beginning of the liberation war in the early 1970's (Lan, 1985). As the war escalated, rural farming communities were forced to live in "protected villages"⁶ to restrict their movements and to reduce ground support for the guerilla fighters. Black farmers who lived through this period recount that great loss of local crop varieties occurred at this time since they were under curfew and could not guard their crops against pests and raids. In addition, they had been unable to move their granaries and seedstocks during the relocation. Reports from a district administrator in northern Zimbabwe state that the level of starvation and poverty was now so great that there was little possibility for the longterm recovery of the local population (Lan, 1985). The restriction on farmers' movements also disrupted local patterns of seed distribution and when seed stocks of particular traditional varieties were depleted these could not easily be replenished from mothers and other relatives who lived far away from their daughters⁷. However, it is likely that seeds from neighboring countries particularly Mocambique and Zambia⁸ were transported with the guerilla fighters and were grown in Zimbabwean villages.

When independence was achieved in 1980, the new government immediately sought to redress the imbalance in agricultural production. A number of agricultural research stations were opened in the communal areas and crop packs, containing hybrid maize seeds and fertilizer, were handed out to all non-commercial farmers. Producers prices were revised, credit loan schemes⁹ were created and the Sorghum and Millet Improvement Programme was initiated. A decade later, in the throes of the centuries worst drought, farmers lamented the loss of their traditional varieties and ascribed this loss to the heavy promotion of hybrid maize and free crops packs which was begun at independence.

Economic aspects of traditional crop diversity: household food security and the cash economy

Household food security: sales and droughts

Recently a situation has developed where small-scale farmers have been unable to grow their traditional crops due to wholesale lack of available seeds as a result of repeated environmental disasters in the form of recurrent droughts or contracted rainy seasons. Real producer prices for sorghum, millets and edible legumes have dropped considerably in recent years, since the trade liberalization program, while those for cash crops have doubled¹¹ (MacGarry, 1994). This has affected all families who cannot afford to buy meat and has lead to increased malnutrition especially in children, who were already vulnerable (Moyo et al., 1985). After the worst drought of the century in 1992, tenders for hybrid maize seed were given to multinational companies such as Cargill and Pioneer, using foreign currency earmarked for economic development. This was because the World Bank forced Zimbabwe to sell its surplus maize stocks, stored as a security for drought years (MacGarry, 1994).

The Famine Early Warning System (Eilerts,1994) states that: "the line between maintenance of health and a slow spiral of deteriorating food security appears very narrow in many of the communal areas." The situation of continuous drought has lead to modified behaviour in the form of reduced food intake and high rates of emigration together with progressive disinvestment in the form of sales of household assets (Eilerts, 1994). "This is a stage where the margin of safety that can cushion future shocks is being substantially eroded. ....on the local scale there may be serious hunger, wasting and nutritional-related mortality." (Eilerts, 1994). This has been a hidden famine because there have been no clearly identified deaths from it. Reports from the Farming Systems Research Unit (1991; 1994) have repeatedly called for small grain varieties to be distributed in the rural areas where demand for improved sorghum and millet seed has continuously outstripped supply (SADC/GTZ report, 1994).

The role of women and small grains

Women farmers have stressed the importance of the small grains for the following reasons:

1. better taste; more variation in the diet;

2. a smaller amount of flour is needed to cook the main meal compared to maize;

3. a meal cooked from the small grains satisfies hunger for a longer period and gives more energy (which is especially important for persons who do heavy manual labor like farmers);

4. the small grains store better (usually 3-5 years but up to 20 years were reported by some farmers) than maize which cannot be stored beyond eight months. Local cost free storage technologies are available whereas maize needs poisonous organophosphate protectants, often unaffordable by farmers;

5. seeds of several varieties of small grains are available for planting from the farmers own granary when needed and can be exchanged with neighbors and relatives - they don't need to be purchased;

6. in years of low rainfall, small grains will give some yield especially when grown in a multicropped system, whereas maize will be a complete failure.

In addition, the type of information which women seek, such as food processing, improved grain storage techniques, methods of organic farming and the care of small livestock, is not available. Women also seek information about prices, credit, seed sources, markets and marketing channels (Zwart, 1990). This is quite the opposite of what was proposed by the president of the Zimbabwe National Farmers Union (1990): "...not being content with educating the (male) farmer, the union has over the years encouraged (farmers) wives to engage in homecraft. To date, it has given stoves and sewing machines to women's clubs...."¹² (The Herald, 1990)¹³. This is despite the fact that about 70% of rural farmers are women (Zwart, 1990) and that they do far more than 50% of all agricultural and domestic labor on the farm (Oosterhout van, 1995, unpubl. data).

Genetic diversity: where to from here?

Rural stratification and knowledge of traditional crop biodiversity

Figure 2: Average number of bags produced per annum by members of each wealth group in selected rural communities in Zimbabwe during the past three years (1 bag = 90 kg). The absolute minimum level at which an average sized household is able to sustain itself for a year is indicated by the broken line.

During periods of drought which usually only manifest after the weeding period, casual labor may not be remunerated at the agreed rate due to the employers experiencing cash shortages (Oosterhout van, 1995, unpubl. data). In general members of this stratum are unable to educate their children beyond primary school level, and usually not even this, due to the cost of uniforms and building funds. All farmers from this group were identified by the community as being those with the greatest knowledge about small grain production¹⁴. Yet for the past three years this group has grown maize exclusively¹⁵ because the drought relief packages which they received have only contained maize seeds. In Matabeleland, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were particularly involved with supplying farmers with various types of imported sorghum and millet seeds, some completely unsuitable for human grain production, and in Mashonaland small seed enterprises bought up sorghum and millet grain from farmers in exchange for cash straight after the harvest when farmers were short of cash but not yet hungry. This grain was later sold as seed to the same farmers when all their seeds had been used up due to numerous replantings¹⁶ over the last disastrous season (SADC/GTZ, 1994; Oosterhout van, 1995, unpubl. data). Small grain seed exchange has thus moved from the hands of those who were particularly knowledgeable about traditional crops to distribution agents like government and extension agents, NGO's (who bought the seeds from formal or informal seed suppliers) and small scale business people for the purpose of drought relief, 'development' or as business opportunities.

Extant biodiversity of the traditional crops and breeding for improvement

In certain areas of Zimbabwe many indigenous varieties of sorghum are still grown (Wilson, 1987) with up to thirteen in some regions¹⁹ (Mushita, 1991; Guveya, 1993; Oosterhout van, 1993; Murwira, 1994; Figure 3) and with as many as sixteen different varieties of legumes (Masvingo Diversity Fair, Zimbabwe, 1995) present in a community²⁰. Individual farmers may grow a number of these varieties but usually not more than three of four varieties of the same crop (Oosterhout van, 1992; Figure 4). What is important for the conservation of biodiversity in crop genetic resources is therefore not individual farmers but the community. This is similar to the situation regarding use and distribution of indigenous rice varieties in the Philippines (M. Bellon, pers. comm., this seminar). However, in the sorghum improvement program almost exclusive use has been made of foreign germplasm obtained from the CGIAR system (i.e. from external genebanks; Mushita, A., pers. comm.).

Figure 3: Percentage of respondents growing each sorghum variety in three study areas in Zimbabwe.

Figure 4: Maximum number of different sorghum varieties grown by each farmer in three study areas in Zimbabwe.

Analyses of the adoption rates of improved sorghum and millet varieties in rural areas by ICRISAT (Rohrbach, 1994) have been flawed because farmers have been so short of seed, especially after the drought of 1992 when most farmers had consumed their seeds as food due to the hidden famine. Had the experiments been conducted by releasing equal numbers of traditional and improved varieties to farming households, the comparison would have been more scientifically meaningful. As the results stand (Rohrbach, 1994) and in the light of the rural stratification discussed above, they only indicate that farmers were short of seed and would plant anything they were given.

Conclusions

1. the colonial era which was accompanied by extensive alienation of land and dispossession of resources;

2. the immediate post-independence period when free hand-outs of hybrid maize seed and fertilizers were given to stimulate production from the small-scale farming sector;

3. the last decade when Zimbabwe experienced significant climatic change with increasing rainfall deficits, recurrent droughts and contracted rainy periods and integration into the world market economy.

Research has indicated that although genetic erosion of the traditional crops has been extensive (for example, Guveya, 1993), pockets of sorghum, millet and legume diversity still exist in the more remote rural areas. In this context, the areas bordering Mocambique in the north east, Zambia in the north and Botswana in the western regions of Zimbabwe, are genetically diverse in terms of traditional crop germplasm and need more scientific attention (Oosterhout van, 1995, unpubl. data). In several of these areas the system of community seedbanking still exists, whereby all members contribute to the annual seed store which is redistributed the following season by the chief after a blessing ceremony. There is thus a clearly identified need to enhance conservation of the crop biodiversity in these areas. But how to go about this given the historical, environmental and ecological disadvantages experienced by the farmers in these regions? The baseline is that in situ conservation cannot be separated from other development issues and that the solutions and modus operandi of the research program should be farmer-driven. A good example of such an approach is described for the development of community seedbanks in Tigray, Ethiopia (Berg, 1992).

During our research (Oosterhout van, 1995, unpubl. data), farmers clearly articulated their need for water harvesting and soil fertility management, items which did not exactly coincide with the agenda of the project on in situ conservation of traditional crops. It was then that we developed the idea of piggy backing the crop research on to other development initiatives which were identified by the farmers²¹. Exchange visits by a pilot group of farmers from our two study areas to an NGO specializing in water harvesting projects resulted in an immense response and burst of activity on the part of the farmers. Farmers from Matabeleland immediately abandoned their weeding activities²² and devoted all their time and energy to digging water pits and furrows. In Mashonaland, farmers responded by digging water trenches and intensifying the use of leaf litter and compost, gathered from the hills surrounding their homesteads, on their cropped fields²³.

We had now found an entry point which was relevant to the farmers' own experience and perception about the sequence in which problems needed to be addressed. At the same time we concentrated on the validation of traditional values and knowledge since an important reason why traditional crops have managed to survive this long is because of their use in traditional ceremonies associated with rainmaking and giving of thanks to or appeasement of ancestors and their conservation by female 'keepers of diversity' (Oosterhout van, 1993). Our trials with early released varieties from the national sorghum breeder, under farmer management conditions, have met with little success due to this year's drought, but an informal seed exchange program, whereby farmers from Matabeleland and Mashonaland traded seeds with each other, was very successful²⁴. Many studies have identified the need for enhanced farmer access to a greater range of traditional crop varieties (Zwart, 1990; Oosterhout van, 1992; Guveya, 1993; Farming Systems Research Unit, 1994) and this should be strongly encouraged.

Farmers, especially women, have also expressed the need for external technological interventions where local knowledge cannot find an adequate solution. Women find the processing of small grains a very tedious and time consuming operation requiring heavy labor. A simple community based mill of intermediate technological design is required to facilitate dehusking and milling of the small grains. This would also encourage greater use of the small grains for household consumption.

Finally, improved on-farm storage facilities and methodologies which do not harm human health, need to be developed in association with farmers, to encourage the conservation and use of the traditional crops and to help farmers in their efforts to be food-secure.

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Footnotes:

1 My sincere thanks go to SAREC, Sweden, for supporting the project financially and for the flexibility and interest displayed by Goran Hedebro and Klaes Kjellstrom. Mr. Neuendorf of GTZ funded part of the project and has showed much interest in the seed banking issues. To my friends, Aude, Petra and Pierre, thank you for your support, and to Trygve Berg, thanks for the discussions. Sam Page kindly loaned me her copy of the BSAC reports and stimulated much of my thinking on the colonial period and agricultural research issues. Special thanks go to my team of field assistants who became so fired up about the topics covered here that they contributed wholeheartedly to the water harvesting efforts. Many thanks also to Louise Sperling and Michael Loevinsohn, organizers of this seminar, for a very stimulating and challenging exchange. This paper is dedicated to the people of Matabeleland. (BACK)

2 Only since colonial times have rivers become borders. In the Zambezi valley, the River Tonga occupy both sides (Zimbabwean and Zambian) of the Zambezi river and along the eastern border of Zimbabwe, Manicaland stretches alongside both Zimbabwe and Mocambique. (BACK)

3 Personal observation of now defunct granaries in the hills around the Mazowe valley. (BACK)

4 Northern Rhodesia became Zambia after attaining independence in 1964. Zambia lies immediately north of Zimbabwe and traditional farming methods were similar in the two countries. Southern Rhodesia became Rhodesia in 1963 and then at independence in 1980, it was renamed Zimbabwe. (BACK)

5 In 1925, agriculture accounted for 15% of GDP and mining 28%. By 1940 these figures were 25% and 15% respectively (Muir, 1984). (BACK)

6 This local version of concentration camps caused severe environmental damage and great loss of personal belongings, events from which farmers have never recovered their pre-war economic status. (BACK)

7 In Shona patrilineal society, daughters leave the parental homestead to join the husbands family. Daughters take seeds of their mother's , her neighbors and her relatives' varieties with them. Exchange of seeds between related and/or friendly women is an ongoing activity and women may travel great distances to obtain the seeds of a desired variety. (BACK)

8 Mocambique and Zambia provided safe havens for the Zimbabwean guerrillas during the war. In the north eastern districts of Zimbabwe, many sorghum and millet varieties have portuguese names and there has been on-going seed traffic up to the present time. (BACK)

9 The credit loan schemes have had a dubious success because they were mostly tied to crop packs containing hybrid maize and fertilizer and left out most of the poorer farmers (Zwart, 1990). (BACK)

10 In low potential areas the level of food insecurity is that much greater and even in these areas, drought relief crop packs rarely if ever contain drought tolerant sorghum and millet seeds. (BACK)

11 Figures obtained from the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), 1994. (BACK)

12 Brackets and italics are mine. The president of the Zimbabwe National Farmers Union (1990) was male. The Zimbabwe National Farmers Union represents the farmers from Zimbabwe's communal farming areas. (BACK)

13 Supplement to The Herald, 18-4-1990, the Zimbabwean national newspaper. (BACK)

14 In the wealth ranking exercises, which were done for each of the selected communities, we asked the group responsible for the ranking to name all the individuals in the community who were particularly knowledgeable about small grain production or those who had grown a wide variety of small grains in the past. Invariably these persons came from the lowest wealth groups but enjoyed the esteem of the community due to their role as keepers of diversity. (BACK)

15 The farmers in this class have the smallest, most resource poor farms and do not use organic or inorganic fertilizers due to cost. They experience frequent crop failure and are therefore completely dependant on drought relief. However farmers consider drought relief as a highly unsatisfactory solution to the problem of food insecurity (Oosterhout van, 1995, unpubl. data). (BACK)

16 Farmers replant several times if the rains are not consistent, often running out of seeds as the season progresses. (BACK)

17 "The first step in breeding should be the maximum utilization of local materials. It is paramount to become well acquainted with the potentials of local materials. This should serve as a starting point for the subsequent improvement of varieties." (Vavilov, 1951). (BACK)

18 "Researchers have historically placed heavy emphasis on biological potential and yield as the dominant criteria upon which to base recommendations for farmers. But farmers never seek biological potential for its own sake and never make decisions on which crops to produce on the basis of yield alone." (Collinson, 1982). (BACK)

19 Most communities are however without traditional seeds after the serious 1992/93 drought when any seed that had not been planted was eaten. In Chivi,for instance, sorghum hectarage has been reduced to 2% of total fields planted (Farming Systems Research Unit, 1994). (BACK)

20 The diversity fair was organized in May 1995 by a local NGO. The top prize went to a farmer who grew more than 34 different varieties and crops. Ironically, Cargill, the multinational hybrid maize and fertilizer company, was asked to donate the prizes for the winners. The prizes consisted of large bags of hybrid maize and agricultural implements which were handed over to the winners after a long speech by the Cargill sales representative. (BACK)

21 "If we could turn the official and popular interest away from the grandiose projects and to the real needs of the poor, then the battle could be won." (Schumacher, 1973). (BACK)

22 The NGO is lead by Mr. Phiri Maseko from Zvishavane Water Projects, Zimbabwe. It was in the middle of the 1994 cropping season, but due to the poor rainfall distribution up to that time, farmers in Matabeleland decided that water harvesting would bring better results than weeding. (BACK)

23 Soils in the area of Matabeleland where our project is sited are highly fertile, but rainfall is desperately low and unreliable. In Mashonaland, rainfall is a little better but the soils in our study area are sandy and of low fertility, hence the use of leaf litter by the farmers. (BACK)

24 This was because the varieties from Matabeleland are more drought tolerant than those from Mashonaland. While the drought in Mashonaland was more severe than usual during this particular season, our study area received unusually good rains in Matabeleland. This particular rainfall occurrence made the seed exchange program highly successful, but it is clear that the underlying principle of greater access to genetic resources and greater freedom to experiment with the material needs encouragement and support. (BACK)

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