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16 | Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Report
by grazing intensity of livestock or wildlife. In these environments, livestock and wildlife production systems have the potential to increase incomes and improve sustainable use of land not suitable for cropping, provided conflicts of resource use and disease transmittances are anticipated, planned for and mitigated or avoided. 9. Forests are important potential resources that need to be well managed for poverty alleviation within the SSA region. AKST, however, is not yet well integrated in forestry/forest management policies within the SSA region. Consequently, value-addition and fair trade of traceable timber and timber products is minimal. Limited research on forestry and agroforestry in SSA hampers the development of forest resources into income-generating enterprises that could alleviate rural poverty. 10. Biomass is the most important source of energy in Africa today, meeting more than 50% of its total primary energy consumption. Its use in traditional forms such as firewood results in inefficient energy conversion, environmental and health hazards and is time-consuming in terms of collection. Several options exist to modernize for the supply of more efficient energy services, among them liquid biofuels and electricity and heat from biomass. 2.1 Crop Production Systems in the SSA 2.1.1 Land, soil and water management |
Soil and water are two important resources for all farming systems and their preservation is crucial to sustain agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa. Their management is highly influenced by land use and tenure systems. 2.1.1.1 Land management SSA is nearly 34% pastoral, 30% forest and woodland and just under 7% of cropland (WRI, 1994). Another 30% is a small part urban and roads and the rest chiefly sand, rock and poorly vegetated terrain. However, the demand for cropland is highly variable and some countries have little room for expansion. The highest proportions of cropland and permanent pasture are in western and eastern Africa; the highest percentages of cropland by country are in Burundi (52.3%), Mauritius (52.2%), Rwanda (46.9%), Nigeria (35.4%), and Uganda (33.7%) (WRI, 1994). These countries, particularly Rwanda, have little scope for the expansion of agricultural production other than by intensification. It is worth noting that some of the countries with advanced commercial agriculture, e.g., Kenya and Zimbabwe, have only low to average proportions of cropland and Kenya has a considerable area with serious environmental limitations. Land use in SSA has also evolved over time from extensive uses of land to more permanent land use types. In some part of pre-colonial Africa, land was mostly conceived of as a common resource to be used, not as a commodity to be measured, plotted, subdivided, leased, pawned or sold (Bohannan, 1963; Colson, 1971). For most of pre-colonial SSA, with its low population densities and relatively limited population movements, land was a resource that all community members should have access to in order to subsist. Subsistence remained the main motive for accessing land and disputes about land boundaries were insignificant. Community members had a ritual relationship to land and did not differentiate between land for agricultural and other purposes (Pottier, 2005). The population had developed efficient systems of land use compatible with their environment. Land use in tropical Africa has evolved from hunting and collection practiced by people such as the Pigmies in the Zaire/Congo Basins through shifting cultivation, widely practiced throughout SSA, to bush fallowing (Pritchard, 1979). These practices had the advantages of minimizing soil erosion, preserving agrobiodiversity, maintaining ecological stability and optimizing the utilization of different soil nutrients. It was under the impact of colonialism that community leaders were made into landlords on the grounds that they were community leaders and therefore holders of the |
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