Table 3 also shows great diversity in agricultural knowledge pertaining to sweet potato. At first it seemed that one of the interesting challenges is to find a way to reconcile the divergent beliefs and practices in one cohesive framework. With more time spent in the field, however, it became apparent that reconciling the differences is out of the question. People retain a diversity of beliefs and practices, alternately hedging following many, even at times conflicting, prescriptions to spread out the risks and experimenting and trying to find a match between varieties and technologies that work most successfully most of the time.
No framework seems to provide greater explanatory power for the results than the "framework" of expediency and fuzziness. Instead of detracting from the significance of adaptation, expediency and fuzziness simply emphasize the often neglected importance of the unplanned, unsought, and underappreciated factors in influencing the direction that adaptation takes.
To illustrate, we have compiled a list of "things to mix" with planting materials (Usually three cuttings of sweet potato per hill) to guarantee that the plants will be robust, hardy, and prolific. In Intavas, cuttings of trees with many thorns such as the sampinit as well as cuttings of plants with many roots like the karogom are mixed with the planting materials to induce better root formation. A broomstick might also be included for this purpose. Together with grasses and dry leaves, which are routinely included, these metaphorical symbolic aids when decomposed serve as organic fertilizers, thus encouraging more vigorous plant growth. In Salvacion, the farmers include a mat so that the sweet potato would cluster instead of spreading out, a salamander so that roots would be big and long, and ashes from the kitchen stove so that the tuber would have the desired powdery texture. The value of these materials in improving both the texture and the organic content of the soil cannot be discounted. The practical benefits, to soil conditions, therefore, reinforce and perpetuate adaptive cultural beliefs, and the other way around. The important thing is that indigenous beliefs and practices enable the farmer to maintain his crops on relatively fertile soil, generally without having to rely on inorganic fertilizers.
Pest control practices also tend to cover all fronts. The most common pests of sweet potato in Intavas and Salvacion are weevil and rats. The beliefs and practices aimed at their control revolve around sacred rites, e.g., beseeching the King of Rats to spare one's fields; making offerings of chicken, eggs, and other food items to the underground spirits to ask them to protect one's crops, and praying to the Almighty for divine intercession. Likewise, traditional practices such as placing ginger in the soil so its strong odor will drive away pests are followed. One sees in these indigenous management practices, both sacred and secular, the principles of distracting pests from crops through decoys and driving them away through fumigation. The results are probably as effective, thus reinforcing the practices.
The prescriptions also include practical cultural management practices like leaning the area very well so there would be no breeding places for pests, diversionary tactics like setting up waving cellophane strips to scare away the rats, and direct modes of attack like setting up indigenous rat traps. When all else fails, farmers maintain their composure by rationalizing that neither rats nor weevils can consume the entire crop anyway and that there will always be some left over for people to consume. This liveand-let-live attitude, plus their sweet potato, sees them through hard times.