The intensification of peri-urban agriculture: the Kano close-settled zone, 1964-1986
Mortimore, M.
Population growth and agricultural change in Africa: 358-400
1993
Document Number: 338887
A large area around Kano in northern Nigeria has high rural population densities and long-established, intensive smallholder agriculture. The population is growing and metropolitan Kano, with a population of over a million, is expanding rapidly. Indigenous management is directed toward sustainability, and indigenous small-scale technologies provide a sound basis for further improvements in productivity. Economic diversification at the household level provides supplementary income. For the present study, the baseline is a field survey carried out in Ungogo District, 10 km north of Kano, in 1964. For comparative purposes, field studies carried out at greater distances from Kano, both within and outside the Close-Settled Zone (CSZ) are also used. Settlement is characteristically dispersed in nuclear or extended family compounds on or near dispersed farm holdings. Intensive rural-urban interaction long preceded the colonial era. The peri-urban zone is now a mosaic of rural and urban residential and land-use patterns. The paper looks at the environmental considerations that have affected agricultural development in the region, rainfall, surface water, groundwater, soils and pests, followed by a discussion on population, its structure, growth, density and the patterns of migration. The nature of agricultural change is covered in some detail, dividing it into the upland system, and the perennial or lowland system, which occupies only 5% of land area, but its importance is disproportionately large. Environmental factors, such as rainfall, water erosion and soil-nutrient status are considered. Land tenure changes and household self sufficiency lead to a conclusion that suggests that the Kano CSZ is essentially economically and ecologically stable.