Water and Africa 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Coping with Drought through Sustainable Agricultural Development in Zambia |
| Author: | Kajoba, Gear M. |
| Year: | 1996 |
| Periodical: | Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review |
| Volume: | 12 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Period: | January |
| Pages: | 47-64 |
| Language: | English |
| Notes: | biblio. refs. |
| Geographic terms: | Zambia Central Africa |
| Subjects: | agricultural policy droughts subsistence farming Drought and Desertification Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Agriculture, Agronomy, Forestry sustainable agriculture |
| Abstract: | This article reviews aspects of climate change taking place in southern Africa and argues that Zambia can best cope with this change through the development of sustainable agriculture based on the incorporation and improvement of indigenous cultivation systems. The first section briefly defines the concept of drought and refers to its impact on agriculture and how Zambia devised short-term strategies to deal with the 1991-1992 drought. Section two traces the development of agricultural policy during the colonial period, when the recommendations of local agricultural scientists in the Department of Agriculture who favoured the improvement of advanced indigenous agronomic systems were disregarded, and commercial maize production by Africans was encouraged instead. The bias towards maize was continued in the postcolonial period. Section three reviews the merits of the indigenous systems of cultivation, with specific reference to the Mambwe mound system, and proposes a number of elements which should constitute a sustainable form of agriculture better able to cope with periodic droughts. Bibliogr., ref., sum. |
