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Upland and swamp rice farming systems in Sierra Leone: the social context of technological change*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Michael Johnny ,
John Karimu  and
Paul Richards
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Extract

It is thought that African rice (Oryza glaberrima), domesticated from the annual wild rice Oryza barthii, a plant of savanna river valleys and water holes, may have been first cultivated along the valley of the upper and middle Niger (Portères, 1970; Harlan, 1975). Cultivation under high rainfall conditions in the forest zone followed the development of ‘upland’ cultivars. Today, farmers in the drier savannas continue to depend on the seasonal rise and fall of flood water in valley bottom land for rice cultivation, and on occasion, this has developed into fully-fledged ‘irrigation’ agriculture (Linares de Sapir, 1970; Loquay, 1980), but elsewhere in the West African rice zone rain-fed ‘upland’ cultivation techniques now predominate. Where rainfall is more reliable ‘upland’ cultivation tends to be preferred because of its greater efficiency of labour use, but, as in ancient times, the occasional supplementary use of swamp to cope with bad years is not uncommon. This paper focuses attention on rice farming systems in Sierra Leone. Rice cultivation probably reached this area several thousand years ago (Atherton, 1979). Although in a few instances regular use of swamp land dates back to the later part of the nineteenth century (e.g. in the Bumban valley and the tidal swamps of the Scarcies estuary: Fyle, 1979, Carpenter, 1978) ‘upland’ cultivation still retains its former importance over large parts of the country.

Résumé

La riziculture dans les bas-fonds et les hautes-terres de Sierra Leone: la cadre social des tranformations technologiques.

On examine ici l'attitude de certains riziculteurs de Sierra Leone devant l'introduction de méthodes de riziculture à fort coefficient de main d'oeuvre dans les marécages des zones basses et ceci dans une région où, jusque là, la culture du riz s'effectuait essentiellement sous pluie, sur les hauteurs et selon un mode itinérant. La mise en place du nouveau système de culture en marécages reflète(a) le point de vue selon lequel l'agriculture itinérante est nuisible sur le plan êcologique et doit être remplacée et(b) le besoin urgent d'un accroissement de la production alimentaire pour approvisionner les zones urbaines. Au cours d'études de cas de quatre villages de Sierra Leone, on a noté diverses réactions aux systèmes de culture en marécages dans les vallées de l'intérieur. On suggère ici que le succès ou l'échec du système envisagé pour la riziculture dépendent du mode de mobilisation de la main d'oeuvre par différents groupes au sein des villages étudiés. Par opposition à la main d'oeuvre que l'on embauche, l'apparition de ‘compagnies’, groupements modernes d'ouvriers, en tant que forme principale de main d'oeuvre agricole est alors étudiée dans le cadre des forces régionales et historiques qui déterminent l'économic politique de la Sierra Leone rurale. On conclut en soulignant que les arguments d'ordre technollogique ou écologique qui s'appuient sur les notions de ‘pression démographique’ ou de ‘détêrioriation écologique’, ne parviennent pas à expliquer la dynamique du changement agraire qui touche les communautés rizicoles étudiées; et que, d'autre part, les planifications de développement qui font appel à ces notions risquent de donner des resultats équivoques.

Type
Rice and Yams in West Africa
Information
Africa , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , April 1981 , pp. 596 - 620
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1981

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