The Changing Social Production and Consequences of Land Quality Variation in Rural Africa

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Inherently low soil fertility and land degradation are seen as major impediments for improving food security and rural development in semi-arid Africa. Soil fertility parameters vary significantly at multiple scales (field, farm, village, watershed, district, region), not only inherently but because of deliberate nutrient harvesting and transfer strategies by African farmers. Analyses of soil fertility management have been dominated by nutrient balance approaches, which generally highlight the futility of sustained production without inorganic fertilizers, and by social historical approaches that argue for the long-term persistence of cropping systems despite fertility constraints. This research project will address the limitations of both approaches. Political ecological research on land quality variation and its changing influence on the social role played by land as evidenced in social transfers, resource conflicts, and livelihood strategies will be conducted in two contrasting study areas that have each been described as "endpoints" of serious soil impoverishment. One case study will occur in the Fakara region of Niger; the other will be conducted in Western Province of Kenya. This will be a spatially explicit study of soil fertility variation that considers the social boundaries that affect human management's effects on and reaction to soil fertility variation, with careful consideration of spatial and temporal scales of analysis. The investigators will employ multiple methods, including GIS, systematic quantitative and qualitative surveys, ethnographic interviews, field histories, soil analyses, and participant observation to explore the implications of soil quality variation on (1) agricultural strategies practiced by farmers; (2) the ways in which different social groups value land; and (3) land transfers and ownership differentiation among rural households.This political ecological study will investigate environmental change at finer spatial and temporal scales than has commonly been performed previously. By documenting the changing sociospatial distribution of fields and fertility investments, the investigators will evaluate the scale sensitivity of standard "sustainability" assessments and address the changing social role of land quality variation at the level of the community and household. Of particular interest are the social implications of land quality variation for persistence of social differentiation at the village level, the nature of land conflicts, the social investments for securing rights to land, and decisions related to transfers of land (inheritance, loaning, pledging, etc.). By seriously engaging with soil quality variation, this study will contribute new understandings to the land-use intensification, soil-fertility transition, and land tenure literatures. It also will contribute to a rethinking of the role of land quality in rural development in tropical Africa. The study will promote the participation of marginalized communities in advancing the scientific research agenda relating to land degradation and poverty and will be conducted in close cooperation with two international agricultural research centers (the International Livestock Research Institute in Niger and the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute in Kenya) with strong connections to decision makers in West and East Africa. Periodic seminars, presentations, and feedback sessions will promote the research findings as they unfold to the international, national (Kenyan and Nigerien), and North American research partner organizations. Research results will also be presented and validated with the participating communities in appropriate formats at the end of the project. Scientific papers will promote the research findings to the academic audience and natural resource management policy makers in the United States and Africa in order to improve the quality of science in the on-going discussions of land degradation and poverty in African agriculture.