Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, March 1999

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Local oil palm management styles in Bénin: wealth or a source of wealth?
by Dorothea Wartena

'The oil palm is a source of wealth' according to the Fon, who live on the Abomey Plateau in South Bénin, and have been engaged in palm oil export production since the middle of the 19 th century. The Adja people, on the nearby Aplahoué Plateau, did not start to systematically exploit the oil palm until the 1920s. They say, 'The oil palm is our wealth', because it brings status and money, and improves the soil. This slight difference in perception reflects two different management techniques. Which of these will prove to be the most sustainable?

The neighbouring plateaus of Abomey and Aplahoué in South Bénin have a bimodal rainfall pattern with a mean annual total of 1050-1100 mm. The soils of the plateaus are Nitisols, which means that their physical properties are good for oil palms, but their fertility depends largely on organic matter and clay content. The natural vegetation before human occupation was a mixture of sub-Sudanese savanna and sub-Sudanese clear forest.
The Abomey plateau is inhabited by Fon and the Aplahoué plateau mainly by Adja, two culturally and linguistically related ethnic groups. The rural population density of the two plateaus has been roughly the same throughout the 20 th century, and in 1985 reached 180 inhabitants per square km on the Abomey plateau and 240 on the Aplahoué plateau. This article deals only with the Fon on the plateau and the Ehwe-Adja, the largest Adja group. It is based on extended fieldwork which was part of a research project carried out for Wageningen Agricultural University, the Netherlands; the focus was on the development of different farming styles and women's involvement in agriculture on the Fon and Adja plateaus between ca. 1600 and 1990. 1
From the mid-17 th century to 1900, the Fon made up the well-known Dahomey (Danhome) kingdom. By the 18 th century, their tillage techniques--ridge tillage and ridging hoes--had transformed their whole plateau into savanna. The Adja have always practiced mainly flat minimum tillage, and the fallow vegetation on the Aplahoué plateau still displays the original mosaic of the forest savanna (see photo 1).

The 'first' oil palms
Oil palms appeared spontaneously in the forest patches on the plateaus. An annual rainfall of 1200 mm is often considered the minimum for oil palms to bear fruit, but the South Béninese indigenous Dura varieties can make do with less (see article Segalla on pp. 16-18). Until 1840 the oil palm in South Bénin was not planted systematically, but trees were protected and benefitted from the soil tillage and weeding carried out for the benefit of annual crops such as maize, cowpeas, yams and pearl millet. Then, when industrialization led to a European demand for palm oil and, from 1860 on, for palm kernels as well, 'Beninese' palm oil exports began to play an important role. Prices remained high until the 1950s (peaking during the 1920s), and were still reasonably high up until the 1970s.

Oil palm management among the Fon
Although free Fon quickly responded to the market and started to plant oil palms, the most typical oil palm management style among the Fon has always been the collectively owned and exploited henudeju and hwedeju (lineage and compound oil palm groves). Even in 1987, almost half of the area under oil palms on the Fon plateau was still collective.
This style was rooted in initiatives such as that of king Ghezo (1818-1858), who installed slaves in several sparsely populated areas in order to produce palm oil. He forbade the felling of oil palms and the production of palm wine, and introduced a palm oil tax for free Fon. The collective plantations are managed according to special techniques which have also been adopted in most individual Fon plantations.

Typical Fon techniques
After almost 150 years of oil palm cultivation in Benin, it is time for an evaluation. I will first describe the 'traditional' Fon oil palm management techniques, and then Adja oil palm management, and a number of new Fon techniques. These will then be compared, in order to assess the sustainability of each of the styles.

Density
The Fon plant their oil palms in densities which allow sunlight to penetrate: between 91 and 172 trees per ha in 1910, and between 80 to 300 palms of all ages per ha in 1990 (Adjinacou 1987: 65, 69, 71; Wartena 1998). Throughout the 20 th century the main herb has been the tall savanna grass Andropogon gayanus.

Age
Fon farmers developed a sacred reluctance to fell mature palms; they call this 'hu de' (killing palms) instead of 'mu' or 'zin' (felling trees). The people themselves say, 'Oil palms are venerated here, we don't kill them'. In 1910 many Fon oil palms were so old--some had been there for 60 years--that they were barely productive (Manning 1980: 56, based on Adam 1910). This is true today as well, especially in the centre of the plateau (Adjinacou 1987: 63; Wartena 1998).

Clean weeding
One problem in Fon oil palm plantations is bush fires. A fire in the undergrowth can damage the trunks, reduce the yield, or result in the death of the tree. Because of the fire risk, the Fon have developed special tillage, cropping, and fallow patterns in oil palm plantations.
Two main strategies are employed to eliminate fire-prone grasses from their palm groves. The first is the annual clearing of the grasses. If no annual crops are cultivated under the palms, the farmer clears the grass on the whole plantation every year, just before the onset of the dry season. If labour is short, he clears only a circle of 2-3 meters around each palm.
The second strategy is permanent cropping. Most Fon prefer to have their oil palm plantations permanently cultivated. This preference is not related to land scarcity, since many oil palm owners have fallow land elsewhere (Adjinacou 1987: 66-67, 89; Wartena 1998). But they believe in permanent cropping to such an extent that they sometimes lend their oil palm plantations to strangers for this purpose, without asking anything in return. This is quite exceptional, since on all other South Béninese plateaus land has become a scarce commodity which is lent without charge only to relatives and agnates.

Evaluation Palm oil was the first commodity which provided a cash income for free Fon of all social categories: lineage heads from the surplus of the lineage commons; other men from palms they were allowed to plant on their own plots; and women from the processing and trading of palm oil. 'The oil palm is a source of wealth' became a Fon slogan which is still used today. How sustainable will this prove to be?
The density favoured by the Fon is in line with what agronomists recommend: 160 palms per ha under average conditions. As to age: extensionists recommend felling palms over 40 years old and replacing them by young ones. But Fon farmers usually prefer to fell young immature palms, rather than 'killing' old ones, arguing that oil palms take so long to grow and to become productive, especially on poor soils, and a mature oil palm will continue to produce fruit, even in soil which is too poor for other crops. Kater (1993: 13) confirms that oil palms take longer to mature on poor soils.
Research has shown that clean weeding impoverishes both the fallow vegetation and the soil. Palm fruit yields are adversely affected by poor organic matter content, and therefore the soil under oil palms should be kept under vegetation cover. 'Clean weeding' should be avoided at all cost.

Adja 'wine' palm cultivation
Until about 1920 the Adja did not plant oil palms systematically, and exported hardly any palm oil or kernels. Many elderly Adja whom I inter-viewed recalled that in the 1920s and 1930s their fathers, uncles, or elder brothers established their first oil palm plantation, and that as young boys they helped in the planting of palms, 600-1000 per hectare.
From the beginning, Adja oil palm cultivation was a much more individual matter than in the case of the Fon. There were virtually no lineage commons, and most married men had the right to plant, harvest and fell oil palms for themselves. Before long, to be a man was to have an oil palm grove. It was perhaps as a result of this more flexible system that the exploitation of oil palms has always been focused on producing wine and--once the distillation technique was discovered--'sodabi' as well. Around 1920 a technique to distil palm wine had been introduced by a Dahomean soldier who had learned the process during the First World War while serving in the French army. In fact, palm wine distillate, known as sodabi, was named after him (Feil 1991: 306; Kater 1991: 4) (see photo 2).

Density
The Adja have always known that high densities are detrimental to fruit production, but provide a high palm wine yield per ha. Administrators and agronomists were very much against the Adja's wine palm system and the production of sodabi, but the Adja refused to change their ways (Wartena 1988: 99; Kater 1993: 5). In fact, between 1920 and 1990 they gradually increased their planting density, and switched from oil to wine production. Today most of them plant 1000 to 1600 palms per ha and sometimes even more. The density depends on the farmer's goals: it is lower if he wants or needs an annual income from oil, higher if he wants to save for future expenditures.

Age
The Adja fell their palms when they are about 20 years old, in order to tap wine. Beninese farmers know that because of the marginal rainfall, their palms would not survive if they were tapped alive, as is done in Nigeria. After felling, farmers prefer to leave the plot with bush fallow for 1-3 more years, to allow the trunk and the roots of the palms to decompose. Then the land is planted again with annual crops and ultimately with new palms.

Adja wine palm 'fallows'
In the dense oil palm plantations of the Adja, annual crops can normally only be cultivated during the first 6-7 years after planting. This period is called 'bogbudi' ('field with oil palms'). At the age of seven or eight, the palms enter into production. From then on the Adja farmers stop pruning the trees, which means that annual crops can no longer be grown beneath the palms because not enough sun will get through. Farmers can afford to do this --to turn the land entirely over to palm trees--only if they have land with immature palm trees where they can still cultivate annuals. The words used to describe this practice are 'dekan' ('oil palm secondary bush') or 'ede xo nyigban' ('the palms have taken the land') (Brouwers 1993: 71-73). Woody species grow spontaneously in the dekan, but herbaceous weeds are quenched by the high density of the palms, even obstinate ones such as Imperata cylindrica (a common grass with stolons which renders soil tillage very difficult).

Evaluation
The experience of many Adja farmers has shown that degenerated soils with small herbs which have been cultivated for decades still contain the roots of trees and shrubs; under dekan these regenerate within a few years, as the soil regains some of its former fertility. During the first 5-12 years after oil palms are cleared, maize yields are considerably higher than the average on the plateau, especially in the second year (Quenum 1988; Brouwers 1993: 55, 71; Dobbelsteijn 1992: 21). Quenum (1988: 120) recorded higher maize yields during the first three years in Adja fields where dense plantations had stood. Kater (1993:18) attributes this to the greater number of palms leaving roots and litter behind. Adja farmers add that the fertilizing effect depends on the number of years that the dekan has remained undisturbed.

New Adja styles
Wine yields are optimal in palms aged 20-25, which have not been pruned too much (Quenum 1988: 142). But farmers with little land or with urgent cash needs tend to go on cropping annuals between their palms or felling them at a younger age. Other strategies have also been developed.
Many small farmers, and even some large ones, plant their palms at relatively low densities and then prune rigorously, in order to have more space for food crops. Others plant at extremely high densities and fell some trees every few years to have a regular income from sodabi, and to allow the remaining palms to grow. Still others crop annuals for many years before they plant oil palms. Those farmers--usually the richer ones--who continue following the traditional wine palm style are increasingly opting for higher densities, especially on land which they lease to tenants (Quenum 1988; Kater 1993: 14).
While the areas of the Ehwe-Adja plateau under bogbudi, particularly those under dekan, have declined over the last 50 years, dekan now tends to be denser than in the past. Adja wine palm management styles are subject to pressure and transformation, but seem to be surviving.

Learning from a neighbour's style?
The Fon and Adja know a bit about each other's oil palm management styles. But the Adja have not adopted any elements of the Fon style, arguing that it yields oil but no wine, and no maize because of the poor soils: 'If you drink only oil, you will not be satisfied.' Their own style shifted more and more in the direction of fallow--for those who can afford it--and wine production.
Most Fon in the centre of the plateau adhere closely to the ways of the former kings and lineage heads: common property regimes, curses against individual men who plant trees, and opposition to the felling of oil palms. They also argue that their soils have become so poor that young palms planted in the Adja way would take too long to mature, and therefore they prefer to keep their old ones. Individual groves in the centre and collective plantations on the edges of the plateau tend to be managed according to traditional Fon techniques.

New hybrid styles
Some individual Fon on the periphery of the plateau are less conservative, especially in the southwest, which borders the Adja area. Some younger men there do plant palms at 'intermediate' densities of 600-1000 palms/ha, fell and tap half of them before maturity, and cultivate annuals in between the remaining 300-500 palms/ha, alternating with short grassy fallows. When the palms are 25-40 years old, they are felled and tapped for wine (Adjinacou 1987: 71-78, 88-89; Wartena 1998).
A variation on this pattern is to fell the least productive palms each year, replacing them almost immediately by young ones, so that the age of the plantation remains variable and the density constant (around 500-600 palms of all ages per ha); this is the style of some Fon who live in Adja villages on the Adja plateau.
The Fon in the frontier area do not follow the Adja style in its entirety because it yields so little oil. The new Fon styles yield wine and oil but fail to stop bush fires and savannization. The Adja in the frontier area are not impressed and cling to their own 'wine' palm styles.

Comparing the performance
If we compare the various Fon oil palm and Adja wine palm management styles, we must conclude that management according to the 'traditional' Fon techniques, as practised in the centre of the plateau and in lineage commons on the edges, is neither ecologically nor economically sustainable because of the resulting poor soils.
Adja wine palm plantations of various densities can all be economically productive at today's prices for oil, sodabi and food crops, and are ecologically sustainable if the dekan period is long enough. The dekan-shortening practices and the extension of the intervals between dekans in new or intensive Adja styles may in the long run prove unsustainable.
The various new hybrid management styles in the Fon-Adja frontier area, whereby oil and wine production are combined, together with intermediate planting densities, seem to be economically productive in the short run. In the long run, however, they do not provide an adequate solution for savannization, bush fires and soil degradation due to the lack of woody fallow.

Dorothea Wartena
Department of Social Sciences
Rural Development Sociology
Wageningen Agricultural University
P.O. Box 8130 6700 EW Wageningen
the Netherlands
Tel.: +31-317-484 753.
Fax: +31-317-483 990.
E-mail: doortje.wartena@alg.asnw.wau.nl

References
- Adam, Jean (1910) Le palmier à huile. Paris: Larose.
- Adjinacou, Cyriaque Armand Leandre (1987) Etude des conditions d'amélioration des modes de conduite des palmeraies traditionelles sur les plateaux d'Abomey et de Zogbodomey. Thése, Abomey-Calavi, Université Nationale du Bénin, Faculté des Sciences Agronomiques.
- Brouwers, Jan H.A.M. (1991) 'Le palmier c'est notre richesse'. Oil palm on the Adja-plateau in Bénin (West-Africa): an example of an agroforestry system based on local knowledge. Internal report, Université Nationale du Bénin, Faculté des Sciences Agronomiques.
- Brouwers, Jan H.A.M. (1993) Rural people's response to soil fertility decline. The Adja case (Benin). Wageningen, Wageningen Agricultural University papers 93-4.
- Dobbelsteijn, Ronny (1992) 'Il est d'or.' Indigenous knowledge and oil palm based mixed-intercropping on the Adja-plateau, Benin. A case study. Wageningen Agricultural University, Department of extension science.
- Feil, Petra (1991) 'Incorporated technology as local knowledge: palm wine distillation in the Province Atlantique, Bénin', Proceedings of the International Workshop Agricultural knowledge systems and the role of extension, Bad Boll, 21-24 May 1991. pp. 304-313.
- Kater, Loes (1993) Agroforesterie avec le palmier à huile sur le plateau Adja, synthése de littérature. Cotonou, Ministére du développement rural, direction de la recherche agronomique, recherche appliquée en milieu réel.
- Koudokpon, Valentin K., Jan H.A.M Brouwers, Marc N. Versteeg, Arnoud Budelman (1992), Priority setting in research for sustainable land use: The case of the Adja plateau, Bénin. Agroforestry systems.
- Manning, Patrick (1980) 'The technology of production in Southern Dahomey, c. 1900', African Economic History no. 9: 49-67.
- Den Ouden, Jan H.B. (1990) 'Ma richesse est dans mes terres'. Différenciation socio-économique et stratégies d'accumulation dans un village Adja 'riche' du plateau Dogbo-Tota, Province du Mono, Bénin. Rapport d'une mission de recherche Aout-Novembre 1989. Wageningen, Département de sociologie rurale des pays tropicaux.
- Quenum, E.K. (1988) Rôle du palmier à huile dans l'économie des familles paysannes du plateau Adja. Abomey-Calavi. Thése, Université Nationale du Bénin, Faculté des Sciences Agronomiques.
- Wartena, Dorothea (1994) 'Utilisation des ordures ménagéres à des fins agricoles dans quelques villages Fon et Adja du Sud-Bénin', Agricultural systems in Africa/Systémes agricoles en Afrique, Journal of the West African Farming Systems Research Network/Revue du Reseau d'Etude des Systémes de Production en Afrique de l'Ouest, Vol. 4, No. 2: 38-47.
- Wartena, Dorothea (1998) 'Oil palm or wine palm? Property regimes and sustainability of oil palm management styles in Bénin.' Paper presented at the CERES seminar Acts of man and nature: Different constructions of nature and social resource dynamics, 22-24 October 1998 in Bergen, the Netherlands.

Endnote
1 For detailed information about research methods and sites, or a copy of the full report, please contact the author.

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