Adaptability of traditional farming methods in tropical Africa: the Dagari (Upper Volta)
Pradeau, C.
Etudes Rurales 58: 7-28
1975
ISSN/ISBN: 0014-2182 Document Number: 258984
In studying the agricultural developments and the farming system of the Upper Volta Dagari, a paleonegritic population, it was found that through numerous though very limited means, traditional farming methods are being adapted to new conditions. The Dagari are constantly worrying about problems of water control, soil exhaustion and of agricultural techniques. The carrying capacity of their territory reaches, in this specific Sudan climate, 50 people per sq. km. To achieve this result, they resort to all the farming methods known to preindustrial and precapitalist people: terraced cultivation, draining and irrigation networks, crop rotation, and shifting cultivation. To help solve remaining problems, new techniques obviously should be introduced. But they should take into account the original capacity for adjustment, as revealed by the study of Dagari agriculture, and that has not been the case so far.