Indigenous Knowledge and Development
Monitor, December 1998 Indigenous Knowledge and Development
Monitor, December 1998
Contents IK Monitor 6(3) | IKDM Homepage | Suggestions to: ikdm@nuffic.nl | (c) copyright Nuffic-CIRAN and contributors 1999.
Focus on: Fieldwork experience in Cameroon.
Peasant ingenuity and innovation in the face of crisis
by Remy Sietchiping
I am a geographer and researcher in Yanoundé, Cameroon, who is interested in the study of change. In February 1996, while doing fieldwork, I experienced something special that I would like to share with others. Moreover, I would like to conclude with some recommendations based on the lessons I learned. I hope to hear whether Monitor readers agree with me.
In Nomayos, a village some 22 km southwest of Yaoundé, I came across a group of young people who had returned to their native village after trying the difficult life in town. I stayed in the village for a while, asked around, and this is what I found. The entire group, which called itself 'the Pisman group', belongs to the same family. When I was there the group consisted of a recent graduate, two young professionals (a commercial agent and a secretary), several college drop-outs, primary school pupils, and assorted others. They had gone back to Nomayos and were determined to make intensive, rational use of the available land. They have tilled the soil of the hillsides in ridges following the contour lines, and at the same time have made optimal use of the marshy, bumpy valley floor. This impressed me because these practices are unusual in this area. Since there is still plenty of virgin land available for cultivation, land is allowed to lie fallow for periods as long as six years. The marshy valley floors are generally abandoned or left unexploited.
New techniques locally
The members of the Pisman group are levelling the clods of earth
and building bridges on the valley floor. At the same time they are creating horizontal,
flat surfaces on the slopes which are linked by means of partitions in order to minimize
erosion. The latter especially is a new and genuinely original technique in the region.1
The group is also cultivating vegetables on banks along the marshes. The innovation here
is that they use fertilizer that is produced locally: namely, droppings from a modern
poultry farm in the vicinity. And instead of having soil regenerate itself by lying
fallow, the group rotates crops. Another interesting thing was the way in which the group
has rationally and progressively put the marshes to use. They constructed fish ponds where
fish are being reared in great quantities. This brings substantial annual revenue to the
members of the Pisman group. At the time of my visit, two ponds were functional but the
group was planning to increase the number to 40 within the next five years. They showed me
the areas where the new ponds will be built. The existing fish ponds were bordered by well
groomed fields where maize, pawpaw, palm trees, and other garden crops were growing.
Elsewhere, the valley floor was preserved for market gardening and the cultivation of
maize and other during the dry season.
Analysis of origin
I was curious to know where and how these young people got the idea
of making such major changes in two ecologically different zones: hillsides and marshes.
Mr Ondoua Marius, a member of the group, told me that the idea of partitions and ridges
along the contour lines of the hillsides came from Bamileke2 workers they had met in the
modern poultry farm in the village. The Bamileke use this technique in their own small
gardens. As regards ploughing, Mr Ondoua Marius said that the group had rationally
compared the local traditional practice with the system of ploughing soil before planting.
They quickly realized that even though ploughing takes more time and requires a greater
input of labour, it is better. He said that they had also wanted to put into practice what
they had learned at school. And the technique for using marshes they had picked up from
their neighbours, the Eton3, during an exchange visit. The main thing to remember when
viewing these changes is that they could not have occurred without the presence of two
conditions. The first is a context that is favourable enough to offer some options. And
the second is just the opposite: difficulties which people have to overcome. In this case,
the young people returned to the village under pressure resulting not only from the urban
crisis (unemployment, worker redundancy, etc.), but also from the education crisis (which
left them with a lack of appropriate skills). These factors created a situation in which
the young people's best option was to return to the village and engage in
agriculture. But difficulties there required that they innovate.
Recommendations
In conclusion, it is safe to say that peasants change and innovate as a response to constraints: constraints of the moment, and environmental constraints in general. It must also be noted that young rural entrepreneurs can prove to be very ambitious and very open to new ideas. As the Pisman group has shown, such young people can transform land use and make more rational use of available resources.
Footnotes
Peasant ingenuity and innovation in the face of crisis
1 The farming technique of
creating ridges and furrows along contour lines has generally been developed in regions of
the world where spatial constraints, demographic pressure and consequently the pressure on
the land are very great (China, Japan, Rwanda, etc.). Two other places in Cameroon where
the technique is practised are in the Mandara mountains and in the western highlands of
the Bamileke area.
2 Bamileke: Cameroonian ethnic group living in the western highlands,
where population density is high and very little arable land is available.
3 Eton: a Beti
ethnic subgroup living in the forest south of Cameroon. The living space of the Eton (like
the western highlands and the Mandara Mountains) is saturated. The Eton have the highest
rural density in the forest south of Cameroon.
For more information, contact
Remy Sietchiping Researcher, University of Yaoundé
Department of Geography P.O. Box 8030 Yaoundé Cameroon Tel.: +237-21-4730. Fax: +237-234
983.
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