Water and Africa 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Ecological and Economic Change along the Middle Reaches of the Gambia River, 1945-1985 |
| Author: | Webb (Jr.), J.L.A. |
| Year: | 1992 |
| Periodical: | African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society (ISSN 1468-2621) |
| Volume: | 91 |
| Issue: | 365 |
| Period: | October |
| Pages: | 543-565 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Gambia |
| Subjects: | agricultural projects environment irrigation rice Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Economics and Trade History and Exploration agriculture Cultural Roles Sex Roles |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/722989 |
| Abstract: | In the years following the Second World War, male farmers along the middle reaches of the Gambia river, spurred by a boom in groundnut prices, began to reorient their labour toward the greater production of groundnuts for export and away from coarse food grains. In the language of the colonial administration, the farmers began 'to neglect food production'. Female farmers, on the other hand, opened up a new ecozone and began to cultivate thousands of hectares of tidal river lowlands in order to grow swamp rice for local consumption. By the late 1970s this production system had come under increasing stress, and the independent government of the Gambia turned toward an ambitious plan to dam the Gambia river and to commit the State to a massive programme of industrial irrigated rice production. This paper examines processes of ecological and economic change along the middle reaches of the Gambia river in the period 1945-1985 and analyses constraints that have shaped the options for economic growth. Notes, ref. |
