The Environmental History of Africa

Topic 12 - Pre-colonial agriculture

  1. Agriculture is consummate ecological history
    1. Human management over nature (a process of negotiation with climate, geology, plant germplasm. Shifting terms of engagement year by year and place to place
    2. Ecological dimension of agriculture versus political/social process of getting access to resources (land, seed, labor, technology)
    3. Is agriculture a "scientific" process of purposeful experimental and action or is it traditional and habitual action?
    4. What generalizations can we make about the case of agriculture in Africa given its distinctive features of being tropical, set in bi-modal rainfall, old soils, disease conditions?

  2. Agriculture in Africa can be examined within several sub-topics.
    1. Crop repertoires
      1. African indigenous crops: sorghum, millet, teff, yams, glaberima rice, types of wheat and barley Secondary dispersal)
      2. New world additions: maize, cassava, cocoayams, beans, squash
      3. Cash crops: cotton, coffee, cocoa, sisal, groundnuts
    2. Agronomy-field systems
      1. swidden systems for managing fertility and moisture
      2. irrigation
      3. terracing
      4. crop rotations
      5. effects of population pressure
    3. Division of labor
      1. Gender
      2. Generational control of junior versus senior
      3. Effects of economic and social change
    4. Technology
      1. Tools (digging stick, ox-plow, hand hoe, mechanization post colonial)
      2. Development of new crop types (cultivars) from farmer selection
      3. Use of fertilizer and soil management
      4. Storage