Swedish scholar discusses Africa with students
Africa is not wholly the famine-ridden land, incapable of farming effectively and providing food for its citizens that many envision it as, according to Mats Widgren of Stockholm University.
“Africans practiced soil and water conservation long before Europeans arrived,” Widgren, of the department of human geography at Stockholm University in Sweden, said Monday to a group of about 50 students and faculty in the Eccles Science Learning Center.
Through his research in Africa, Widgren said he and several colleagues have found remains of irrigation furrows in the Rift Valley in Tanzania dating back to the 17th or 18th centuries.
In Zimbabwe, Widgren said areas of terraced agriculture from around the same time period have been found. Cattle droves and areas where manure was collected have also been discovered in South Africa, he said. These findings are similar to remains Widgren said he found in Sweden when beginning his agricultural research.
These findings, he said, while “not what you expect from Africa,” demonstrate that Africa used to be a much more equal partner with Europe than it is today. The roots of the change in Africa’s status and ability to farm for itself, Widgren said, can be found in either the disruption of African society the slave trade caused or the unsettling influence of European colonialism in the 19th century – or some combination of both factors.
Some of these 17th century farming practices survived, however, he said. In Marakwet, Kenya, Widgren said he found that complicated aqueducts have been constructed, drawing water from a waterfall in the mountains down to the valley floor. Clay, trees and stones are used to construct this system of canals which force the water flow to go where farmers want it to go, Widgren said. When water reaches the valley floor, it is controlled and divided between plants and farms that need it. Widgren said the elderly decide who gets water through negotiations and agreements which take into account established water rights.
Similarly advanced farming practices are in place in Iraqw’ar Da’aw, Tanzania, and Konso, Ethiopia, he said. Farmers in Iraqw’ar Da’aw practice “zero grazing,” Widgren said. Zero grazing is a method of limiting cattle grazing to prevent overuse of fields in which cattle are kept in small, enclosed areas and grass is brought to them. In Konso, Widgren said farmers rotate crops in order to maximize production and variety. Farmers in Konso also farm on a terraced landscape.
“Building terraces like this isn’t something that you do overnight,” Widgren said. Farmers in Konso work together, he said, calling on neighbors to form work parties to work on projects too big for individual farmers. Widgren said for even bigger tasks that will benefit the whole community, such as repairing a damaged flood wall, the religious leader of the community, the poqalla, is able to persuade people to labor in return for blessings. The poqalla functions much as a feudal landlord in these areas, Widgren said. In this respect, Konso has some things in common with the hierarchy found in Asia.
In other areas, such as Marakwet, where power comes with age, the society is more equal, he said. “People do things different ways in different places. There is no simple explanation,” Widgren said.
One phenomenon found in all areas he has studied – whether the society is structured hierarchically or more equally – Widgren said, is an informal exchange of surplus. “Farmers invest in the future,” he said, “and this sometimes means calling on a neighbor for help, and sometimes means providing help to a neighbor.”
-dmaxfield@cc.usu.edu