Indirass and the political ecology of flood recession agriculture

The principle thesis of this chapter is that one component of an improved agricultural development policy in Sahelian Africa should involve the elaboration of a tenure system that is based on Islamic and customary principles and rooted in an adaptation to the local environment. This is not to say that local tenure systems need no improvement, but it is to argue that the transplanting of basically European temperate climate agriculture, market economy, and individual title-based tenure is fundamentally a mistake. There are many reasons why such a system is inappropriate, but the most basic involve differences in agricultural risk, lack of literacy, and the need to have a system that can remain within the grasp of local people while adapting quickly to changing patterns of cultivation. The bulk of this chapter will focus on a discussion of what such a system might entail on the Mauritanian side of the Senegal River Basin (SRB).