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For several years Guinea-Bissau, and especially its northern
province of Oio, has experienced climatic change and disruptions to its
ecological balance. Rainfall reached its lowest level for at least ten
years, which has had a serious impact on the livelihoods and food security
of many farming people. The drop in rainfall was partly due to uncontrolled
forest exploitation in the northern region, and partly to the natural
drought cycle that Sahelian countries have been experiencing for more
than 20 years. In Oio, the most serious impacts of these climatic disruptions
were:
* a rise in salt concentrations and inexorable advance
of salt water into inland rice paddies
* a loss of several hundreds of hectares of paddy fields
due to salinisation
* a decrease in rice production leading to food shortages
and food insecurity in the northern region.
In recent years, an NGO involved in self-help and community
development, called RADI/KAFO, has made some bold attempts to help solve
the problems faced by rice farmers by looking for solutions locally. RADI/KAFO
has been working the Oio region for seven years on a programme to promote
food self sufficiency and better standards of living. It has more than
3000 members, the majority being Mandingues people. Other member groups
include the Peul and Foulas peoples.
The progressive salination and loss of their paddy fields
was increasingly preoccupying farmers of the Oio region, who saw their
autonomy and self-sufficiency in food production being eroded year by
year. Although the Mandingues have a long tradition of rice cultivation
in upland areas, they were unable to cope with the problem of salinity
since they lacked the appropriate knowledge and techniques for dealing
with irrigated rice cultivation. Other ethnic groups of the Oio region,
like the Peul, couldn't help either. The Peul mainly cultivate other grains,
such as millet, maize and sorghum, and learned rice cultivation only through
RADI/KAFO programmes. After considerable deliberation, the people of the
region finally came up with a solution: to initiate an interethnic exchange
of knowledge with the Ballantes, another well known group in Guinea Bissau.
The Ballantes are not only experts in recovering saline rice fields but
also in improving and enriching regained plots and making them viable
again.
Rice cultivation is the cultural heart of the Ballante
and all traditional values centre around it. Techniques and know-how are
inherited from generation to generation. Rice is considered sacred as
well as constituting the basic food crop. It is important to recognise
that the Mandingues also have a long tradition of upland rice culture
with highly developed techniques and know-how of their own, but that their
experience did not extend to rehabilitating salinised rice paddies. The
Ballantes, meanwhile, have developed a several stage approach to paddy
recovery. Over recent years, this has been shared not only with the Mandingues,
but also with the Peuls and other members of KAFO in the Oio region.
One important characteristic of Ballente recovery techniques
is their ability to adapt to prevailing environmental conditions. They
also recognise the importance of mangroves for successful rice cultivation
- in terms of their valuable contributions to compost and in salinity
control. An integral component of Ballente strategies is the conservation
and protection of existing vegetation and ecology.
In 1994, an inter-ethnic exchange programme was initiated,
and has been characterised by four distinct phases.
Introducing the Ballentes to the Oio region
The Ballentes stayed in Oio for 15 days to study the
situation, analyse problems, determine what equipment would be required,
and work out the logistics of moving a 30-strong team of Ballentes for
a 30-day stay in the region.
1st stage of rice paddy recovery: In this
phase, the actions identified in the first phase were put into place.
This involved the fabrication and application of traditional equipment,
new terraces, studying the chemical composition of salinised soils, and
building new paddy dikes. During this 30-day phase, 8ha of rice paddy
was recovered.
2nd stage of paddy recovery: In this 10-day
phase, each recovered paddy was provided with new systems of dikes and
drainage, primary and secondary irrigation channels, and pumps or dams
where necessary.
3rd stage of paddy recovery: The Ballentes
had brought with them several locally-adapted varieties of rice, which
had been conserved over generations through traditional seed banks. These
were tested in the new conditions in the experimental plots over a period
of 45 days, overseen by three Ballente women experts. The follow-up is
now being undertaken.
This case demonstrates how traditional values have been
used profitably for sustainable development in a rural peasant society
in Guinea-Bissau. Knowledge and know-how have been shared through the
integration of Ballente experts into the Oio culture. Different cultural
groups have been drawn together through their beliefs and their practical
survival and subsistence methods. Today, both Mandingues and Peuls are
capable of making equipment for recovering salinised rice paddies, and
regaining their ability to be self-sufficient in food production.
Samba Seck works for an NGO called RADI/KAFO and for
SWISSAID in Guinea Bissau. He can be contacted (in French or Portuguese)
at the following address: SWISSAID, C.P. 33, Bissau, República da Guinè-Bissau,
Fax: (+245) 20 18 15
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