The population, environment, and agriculture nexus in sub-Saharan Africa
Cleaver, K.; Schreiber, G.
Agriculture and environmental challenges proceedings of the Thirteenth Agricultural Sector Symposium: 199-213
1993
Document Number: 287513
Over the past thirty years, most of sub-Saharan Africa has experienced very rapid population growth, agricultural stagnation, and severe environmental degradation. The objective of this paper was to gain a better understanding of the underlying causes of these problems, and to test the hypothesis that these three phenomena are interlinked in a strongly synergistic and mutually reinforcing manner. The study's findings confirm the hypothesis of strong synergies and causality chains linking rapid population growth, degradation of the environmental resource base, and poor agricultural performance. Traditional African crop and livestock production methods, traditional methods of obtaining woodfuels and building materials, traditional land tenure systems and land-use arrangements, and traditional gender roles in rural production and household maintenance systems were well suited to survival needs on a fragile environmental resource endowment when population densities were low and populations were growing slowly. However, the persistence of these traditional arrangements and practices, under severe stress from rapid population growth, is causing extensive degradation of natural resources, which in turn contributes further to agricultural stagnation.