Agriculture in the Mauritanian Guidimaka: Environmental or Social Problem?

Abstract

The Sahel received worldwide attention during the 1968–73 drought and its aftermath. This interest, and continuing research, have revealed that agricultural societies in such marginal environments face periodic traumas, because of their unfavourable and unpredictable physical conditions. Research and subsequent development planning have accordingly concentrated on the environment as a physical resource of limited opportunity, isolating the features which function as constraints and highlighting, for example, inadequate water supply for crops, erosive soils of low fertility, pest and disease problems and the inherently low buffering capacity of the Sahel.²

I should like to thank War on Want and its Sahel development team for the experience of working in the Guidimaka project and for the opportunity of writing this paper. The original team, all instrumental in the formulation and carrying out of the development plan, had five members: the present author (physical geography, ecology); Claude Raynaut (sociology, anthropology); Jorge Torrealba (agronomy); Richard Eisner (political economy co-ordinator); and Christopher Robins (agronomy).