Land Use and Land Tenure in Africa: towards an evolutionary conceptual framework by Gear M. Kajoba

Sedentary agricultural land use also includes the various indigenous agronomic complexes such as those of the Kuba and Zande peoples in the Congo involving cassava - cereals - legumes rotations; the Sonjo sweet potatoes - cereals - irrigation complex in Tanzania; the Lugbara cassava - cereals - legumes - bananas complex in Uganda and the West African Rice - Tubers- Legumes based agronomic complex (Kajoba, 1993). In other agronomic systems,

different types of cereals, legumes, root crops, cucurbits and fruit trees were cultivated, and irrigation, crop rotations, cattle and green manuring were practiced to ensure agricultural sustainability.

Hunting and Collecting practiced by the Bushmen in the Kalahari desert and other nomads such as the Pygmies in the Zaire/Congo.

Shifting cultivation which is still widely practiced in the Miombo woodlands of sub-Saharan Africa.

Bush Fallowing in which the cultivator returns to an abandoned patch of land once the soil and vegetation has recuperated. In this system, the cultivation of root crops such as yams and cassava have led to semi-permanent cultivation and settlements as the cassava fields are extended annually and the crop remains stored underground and is only harvested when required.

Sedentary/permanent agriculture have been found to exist in the Sahara

among the Souafa populations who cultivate palm trees, rice, fruit, cotton, vegetables, eucalyptus trees and keep sheep, goats and camels in areas where fossil underground water is available.

Shifting axe and hoe cultivation is the original mode of land use practiced in higher rainfall regions. This is the shifting cultivation mode of land use in which crops are sown in the ash, which results from burning felled trees. The period of agricultural use is limited to a few years (not more than four years).

Semi-permanent hoe and ox-plough cultivation is the next stage in the evolutionary development among the Luvale, Lozi and Mambwe peoples. Among the Lozi and Mambwe, cattle raising offers an opportunity for ox-drawn ploughing which facilitates expansion of cultivated areas. Soil fertility is maintained by the application of cattle manure.

(a) Societies in which an individual obtains land rights by residence, without allocation

through a hierarchy of estates:- This was the most prevalent type of land tenure in pre-colonial Africa (and in Zambia) where land was generally plentiful and the populations were sparse.

b) Land holding under the control of lineages:- In this system, access to agricultural land

was exclusively reserved for the use by the members who traced their heritage from a common

ancestry. As a rule, transfer of land rights among the Luvale was between matrilineal relatives or friends, and the land rights of a deceased person were most likely taken over by a matrilineal relative.

(c) Societies in which Chiefs exercised direct control over allocation of land with a

descending hierarchy of estates:- This form of land tenure was associated with the emergence of centralised pre-colonial states or kingdoms. This system of semi-feudal land tenure made some members of the aristocracy (the indunas) very powerful since they controlled personal/regional military personnel.

(d) Feudal systems with landlords and tenants:- Feudal systems of land tenure and feudal relations of production emerged in many different parts of Africa.

(e) Individualised land tenure under commercial production:- The imposition of colonial rule in many parts of Africa, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, led to land alienation and the settlement of European commercial farmers. This was the case in Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia, where this process created two different legal systems, the long established customary land law and English land law.

With the passage of time, commercial agricultural production by European settlers in

Zambia soon began to diffuse in the 1930s to African subsistence farmers who adopted new

technologies such as hybrid maize and ox-drawn ploughs.

• The policy implications arising from this conceptualization is that in order to resuscitate agricultural sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa.
• These indigenous agronomic systems should be modernized and brought into the market through attractive producer prices for the traditional crops and other supportive infrastructure including markets, extension and input supply through appropriate private sector, donor, NGOs and state interventions.