Abstract
Five areas in the Embu District of Kenya, which include various climate and soil condition within a relatively short distance, were selected in order to understand the traditional farming way adapted to the social and natural environment.
The amounts of mean land holding and cropped land decreased as the altitude of the land rise. The land holding was large in the lower areas because of bushland for livestock grazing. The process from rotational bush fallow system to semi-permanent or permanent farming system seemed to be taking place in the study areas because the fallow land amounted to 10 to 20 percentage of the cropped land in the study areas. The crops grown in each area were selected to cope with the degree of dryness or wetness.
The humid savanna farming system in combination with the cereals and root crops, which originated in the American continent, and the dry savanna farming system in combination with the cereals and legumes, which originated in Africa, were predominant in the humid upper areas and in the dry lower ones, respectively.
The intercropping was common in the study areas, but the crop association was more diversified in the lower areas than the upper ones. It is supposed that the diversification of crop association is closely related to an irregular change of the environment year by year.
