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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Agro-Diversity on a Farming Frontier: Kofyar Smallholders on the Benue Plains of Central Nigeria
Authors:Netting, Robert McC.ISNI
Stone, M. PriscillaISNI
Year:1996
Periodical:Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:66
Issue:1
Pages:52-70
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:Kofyar
small farms
agricultural ecology
Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment
Development and Technology
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/1161511
Abstract:The fact that swidden farming in the tropics incorporates a great array of cultivated and wild species of plants and animals and that mechanized agriculture manages a relatively small number of species would seem to indicate that agrodiversity generally declines with intensification. This article reports on an agro-ecosystem that is known for its intensity - that of the Kofyar of central Nigeria - yet one that maintains high levels of agrodiversity. More generally, the article explores the role of diversity in systems of smallholder agriculture and makes a case that these systems, like that of the Kofyar, foster diversity as part of environmental and economic sustainability even as they adapt to new agricultural conditions, whether created, as in this case, by the opening of a frontier and the expansion of market opportunities, or by other sets of changes in the wider political and economic environment. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French.
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