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Improving Urban Agriculture in Africa: A Social Perspective

Urban agriculture, which plays an important role in many developing countries, is of special significance in sub Saharan Africa. The extent of urban agriculture varies according to time and place. In Libreville in 1957, 80 per cent of the women were reported to cultivate a field [1]. In a 1962 survey of Ouagadougou, 36.4 per cent of those questioned called themselves cultivators [2]; a similar percentage was found toward the end of the 1970s in Yaounde [3]. In 1967 in Dar es Salaam, 18.6 per cent of the households were engaged in agriculture [4]; during the last years of the Bokassa regime in Bangui, many of the prisoners and residents of Ngaragba survived only because of the gardening efforts of local women [5]. With this large percentage of urban gardeners is an equally large percentage of urban land dedicated to growing food. In Zaria, Nigeria, aerial photography showed that 66.2 per cent of the urban area was cultivated [6]. Such areas could be located within the city itself or on its periphery. The patterns of location may change over time, as cultivated land is pushed outside the city by housing demands that outprice gardens as land use. This was the case in both Dakar and Brazzaville. The latter, described in 1963 as a ‘’garden city” [7], has become a city in which economic factors decide where urban agriculture develops. In the ancient cities of the Yoruba in Nigeria, cultural factors have determined that agricultural activities are traditionally located on the periphery [8]. There is considerable variation among cities. In Dakar and Brazzaville, more and more emphasis is placed on vegetables and condiments, related, no doubt, to the increased imports of wheat and rice. In other cities, such as Cotonou, there is small-livestock rearing and some aquaculture [9]. Many towns in Zaire even include staple foods such as cassava and bananas as part of urban agriculture. Such suburban neighbourhoods, including those of Kinshasa, are characterized by a dense cover of palm trees: without palm oil, the fat and vitamin levels of the residents would be very low. The produce and revenues of urban agriculture constitute a much-needed source of complementary income. Urban agriculture can be the most important resource for women, who rely on it to provide at least part of their family’s food. It can also be the principal occupation of men who have no salaried job. In any case, it is an essential component of survival in the city.