Savoir paysan et fertilité des terres au Nord-Cameroun

Abstract

A study based on survey among farmers and on farm observations was conducted in four selected villages of Northern Cameroon in order to understand how farmers assess the fertility of their land, i.e., the capacity of farm land to produce crops. The result shows that the farmers use four groups of criteria in order to determine the fertility level of the soil: i) the weeds present; ii) the biophysical state of the soil, which includes the macro fauna present, the texture and the colour of the soil; iii) the productivity of labour; and iv) the productivity of the land, variable from crop to crop on the same land. Once they have collected all this information for a given land, the farmers are able to assess its fertility level and on that basis choose the crops most likely to yield the best results.