We designed an observational survey of the “pure” foraging lifestyle of the Baka hunter-gatherers in Cameroon to verify the “Wild Yam Question”: is it possible for human beings to live without agricultural products in a tropical rainforest? The nutritional status, the type and amount of food procured and food-getting activity over 20 consecutive days in the forest camp were observed for six married couples in August, the short dry season, 2003. The subjects didn't loose weight and they finished the twenty-day foraging life without health problems. The energy contained in the food procured during the study period was estimated at 2732 kilocalories per person per day, which could be sufficient for the energy requirements of fairly small subjects. Fifty-three percents of this energy was from wild yam tubers, 26 percents from game meat, and 13 percents from wild nuts. The collection of wild yam tubers was stable during the study period. There was no significant difference in the amount of each food type procured between the first half of the study period and the latter half except for nuts, the amount of which increased in the latter half. As for the cost of unit food energy, neither the number of daily steps walked measured with pedometers nor the time for food-getting activities changed between the first half and the latter half of the study period. There was no evidence in this study that it was difficult to live independently of agriculture in a tropical rainforest.

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This paper aims to analyze indigenous land tenure systems in rural Malawi. Based on the data derived from six villages in various parts of Malawi, it examines how matrilineal and patrilineal inheritance rules are applied to land transactions observed in rural areas. Both flexible and strict applications of inheritance rules are found, and these different applications are influenced by many factors such as degree of land scarcity, life history of residents, and various strategies adopted by farmers to secure their access to land. Overall, the paper emphasizes both complexity and flexibility in the reality of land transactions and maintains that simplified view of land tenure systems based on a matrilineal/patrilineal dichotomy may be misleading.

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Cassava is one of the most important crops in Africa. Although it grows in various environments throughout Africa, previous reports on cassava cultivation have been limited tocultivation in humid regions. In this paper, I present an example of cassava cultivation in a dry environment, focusing on western Zambia, a part of the Kalahari sands, which spread over southern Africa. The people who cultivate cassava in western Zambia are immigrants from eastern Angola, including Mbunda, Luchazi, Chokwe, and Luvale. They practice shifting cultivation in Kalahari woodland and cultivate cassava for both subsistence and sale.
The cassava cultivation in this area is characterized by some peculiar forms of management. First, the people grow cassava at various stages of development in different fields. Second, they plant cassava stems using selected cuttings. These cuttings are normally 100cm long and are of good quality, since they are still young. These practices are based on the farmers' recognition of the drought-resistance mechanisms of cassava. Furthermore, the people selectively cultivate a bitter type of cassava because it is more drought resistant than the sweet cassava. These characteristics of cassava cultivation can be explained as resulting from the immigrants' adaptation to their new lives, based on assessing the characteristics of each cassava variety according to the requrements of the new environment they have encountered. This has enabled them to practice continuous cassava cultivation, harvest commercially valuable cassava, and maintain sufficient production despite the severe environment.

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During the first half of the seventeenth century, the Amhara, a major agrarian people of the Christian kingdom of northern Ethiopia, fought against the pastoral Oromo who had begun to enter the kingdom's territory since the first half of the sixteenth century. The Jesuits reported that the Emperor Susneyos (r. 1607-1632) levied cattle tax called “Queima”. Although scholars have enumerated it as an item of taxation of the kingdom, studies of this tax have been strangely neglected by them. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the reasons of introduction and abolition of this tax, to estimate its revenues, and to examine its role in the northern Ethiopian history, based on the Jesuits documents and Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic) documents. The conclusion proposed is as follows: (1) The Emperor Gälawdewos (r. 1540-1559) introduced “Queima” in the first half of the 1550s. It is probable that he introduced this new tax to rehabilitate his kingdom after the war against the Muslims. (2) The Emperor Yohännes I (r. 1667-1682) abolished “Queima” in 1667. His decision can be explained by the following reasons. First, the burden of this tax was heavy. Secondly, the Emperor needed to conciliate people's dissatisfaction with the oppression of his predecessor the Emperor Fasilädäs (r. 1632-1667). Thirdly, he could obtain many herds of cattle during the military expeditions against the Agaw around the Lake Tana. (3) From the second half of the sixteenth century to the first half of the seventeenth century, the war between the Amhara and the Oromo was at its worst. As a principal item of taxation, “Queima” supported financially this war and the rule of the kingdom. It seems reasonable to conclude that this cattle tax contributed to the survival of the Christian kingdom of northern Ethiopia under the pressure of the Oromo migration.

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In Ghana, it is pressing that the country becomes self-sufficient in the production of cereals as the balance of trade in agriculture is worsening. The government introduced irrigation that is supposed to improve agricultural productivity, but the effects are very limited. There are mainly three reasons for this; the initial lack of monetary investment to develop irrigation schemes, the lack of management expertise and the immaturity of the farmers' organization nationwide.
An alternative participatory irrigation development research project to counter this problem was started. This marked the start of the Sawah* project (SP). It is planned that SP introduces a low cost and highly productive agriculture system to under-utilized low land and to transfer the techniques of irrigation and lying farm management to rural farmers.
The Inland Valley Rice Development Project (IVRDP) was designed from the ecological engineering knowledge derived from SP. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture obtained a loan of £20 million from The African Development Bank and the IVRDP, as a national project, was put into action in 2005.
The problem of technology dispersal to farmers (new rice farming system and irrigation technology) still exists even with the implementation of SP. As a consequence, research activities were conducted in the villages around the farmers who are participants in the program. The results are as follows.
Firstly, sawah rice cultivation provides more favorable income than the average cocoa farm and irrigated vegetable cultivation. There are however still many farmers who aim at cocoa cultivation; there is the advantage where traditional mix cropping system allows for food crops to be produced in the early stages of cocoa production without any additional labor input.
Secondly, migrant farmers have more incentive for developing sawah fields as previous research findings show that sawah development improves the value of land such as cocoa farms. Previous research concluded that the native farmers who own land have more incentive for developing sawah than migrant farmers who own no land. This contradiction stems from the land lease contract that was newly formed in the process of SP.
This contract provides multi-years land use rights to the tenants instead of paying 1.5 times the normal rent. Traditional contracts allow only one-year use. Migrant farmers use this new land lease contract to develop sawah. This agricultural land contract will be gradually fixed in survey areas.
Thirdly, it was proven that fair distribution of labor and income promoted sawah development. This fair distribution of labor and income is due to leadership in the participating groups and the homogeneity of the members much likened to clanship or a closed community.
The authors recommended IVRDP from these survey results. Labor and capital investments to land for food production have not been recognized in Ghana for a long time. This is opposed to land for production of cash crops such as cocoa. IVRDP has been given first priority in the construction of food production base.
IVRDP uses inland volleys, which have rarely been used in Ghana. A traditional monetary capital system, called “susu”, a folk saving system is also utilized. Further observations of IVRDP will give us knowledge on how to establish a sustainable self-food production system in Ghana.

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