Date: Dec. 5 (Fri), 2014, 15:00 – 18:00
Venue: Seminar Room (Room # 318), 3F Inamori Center, Kawabata Campus, Kyoto University
Language: English

Title: “Ecological and Social dynamics of Agricultural systems in Southern Cameroon”
Lecturer: Martin Yemefack, PhD (IRAD / IITA)

ABSTRACT:
Shifting cultivation or slash and burn agriculture is the mother of all existing farming
systems in southern Cameroon. It is the main land use systems practiced by small scale
farmers to ensure subsistence food and a small income. However, due interactions
between ecological and socio-economical events, the system shows a great spatial
variants and tremendous transformations. It is by essence an agricultural system that
capitalizes for its sustainability on nutrient stored in vegetation and topsoil. Its evolution
till date in most parts of the forest and humid savannah areas of southern Cameroon has
been influenced the quality of natural resources, socioeconomic setting but more
importantly macroeconomic events. It is nowadays based mostly on rotational short
fallow systems as due to high demand on land near villages and increasing trade in food
crops products. But, there is also a continuously encroachment into primarily forest
because of market-oriented productions. Burning also induces changes in soil properties
and environmental services. Several international efforts have been made to stabilize the
system and improve the livelihood of communities that practise it. Environmental
services such as carbon stocks decrease with increasing extension of agricultural
frontiers at the expense of forest. But, gains are also observed in savannah-forest
margins where forest takes over after agricultural practices or the development of
agro-forests from previous savannah ecosystems. The grass field bocage model with its
agro-forests and intensified monocultural systems are sound practices that need to be
explored for system productivity enhancement and environmental protection. Some
developmental pathways are possible: (i) the development of intensive high carbon
agro-systems with multipurpose trees in the highlands, prompted by high population density and the dynamism of grass field people; (ii) the development of extensive low
carbon and high profitable agricultural system associated with the production of food
crops; (iii) the development of combined approaches for ensuring a sustainable
agricultural production, an added value by the transformation of agricultural products
and an adequate marketing systems; etc. The implication of these in the actual context
of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+), is that a wide
gamut of policies and further researches must be undertaken, if the goal of reducing
inappropriate deforestation is to be taken seriously.
Keywords: Shifting cultivation dynamic, agroforestry, agricultural intensification,
sustainable resource management, climate change, research gaps, southern Cameroon.

Co-hosted with: – JST and JICA program: Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable
Development (SATREPS): “Establishment of Sustainable Livelihood Strategies and
Natural Resource Management in Tropical Rain Forest and its Surrounding Areas of
Cameroon: Integrating the Global Environmental Concerns with Local Livelihood
Needs” (Principal Investigator: Prof. Shigeru Araki)