Socio-ecological resilience in traditional farming systems of Niger

Background/Question/Methods

Current sustainability research and resilience theory has proposed models which help us to understand what characteristics define resilient systems and how such systems move through the adaptive cycle, gain or lose resilience.  There have been many examples given to help us understand how this works in ecological systems or in sociological systems, but the evidence is lacking in the interaction of these systems. This paper explores how agriculture and the promotion of secondary crops or the weeds of agriculture can support social-ecological resilience. This study uses interdisciplinary participatory research methods conducted in southwest Niger from 2005 until 2008, to uncover examples of how current agriculture practices are increasing the biodiversity of farms and preserving plants that are keystone to many cultural practices.

Results/Conclusions

Using farmer interviews and vascular plant surveys of the farms, this research demonstrates how by promoting certain key plants farmers have been able to increase the species diversity on their farms, turned field borders into productive parts of the farms and seem to be making their fields important repositories for future environmental changes. We measured resilience in five areas plant community dynamism, social capital, natural capital, and redundancy. We compared cultivated areas with fallows and uncultivated areas. We expected to find high social capital and lower natural capital in cultivated areas. We found there was no significant cultivation effect on all five areas of resilience. We postulate that it is secondary crops that boost species diversity and redundancy in the cultivated areas. These secondary crops, often local perennial grasses, herbs or trees, remain even after cultivation is abandoned to boost the social capital of uncultivated areas and natural areas.  These findings are then set in the context of current global initiatives of preserving the “lost crops of Africa” and promoting community-based conservation.

Using farmer interviews and vascular plant surveys of the farms, this research demonstrates how by promoting certain key plants farmers have been able to increase the species diversity on their farms, turned field borders into productive parts of the farms and seem to be making their fields important repositories for future environmental changes. These findings are then set in the context of current global initiatives of preserving the “lost crops of Africa” and promoting community-based conservation.