Le jeu croisé des dynamiques agraires et foncières en Afrique subsaharienne

Abstract

Over the last decades different factors such as demographic growth, the opening of markets and alterations in rural policies have induced quick changes to farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Throughout the period, shifting cultivation with long fallows has been replaced by fixed cropping systems without fallow. This evolution has led to a progressive change in land tenure rules. The present communication aims at recalling the main steps of this dual evolution of farming systems and land tenure rules: several case studies make it possible to analyse the mutual relationships between agrarian and land tenure dynamics. More often than not, changes in farming systems have brought about an alteration in land tenure rules, although in some situations it is the land tenure rules which have made the adoption of new farming systems a success or a failure. Another purpose of this communication is to show that the occurrence of this farming system and land tenure mutual evolution is neither uniform nor synchronous whatever scale you consider: national, regional, local, village or production unit. The reasons for this space and time heterogeneity are analysed as well as its results on social links within rural communities and on the States of sub-Saharan Africa facing difficulties in drawing up and enforcing new regulations and laws to improve land tenure management.