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  • Title: The Sahel: drought, desertification and famine.
    Author: Timberlake L.
    Journal: Draper Fund Rep; 1985 Sep; (14):17-9. PubMed ID: 12313941.
    Abstract:
    Between the end of Sahel's 1968-73 drought and the early 1980s, the production of the drought-resistant sorghum and millet was increasing at about 1% a year, but simultaneously the population was growing by about 2.5% a year. A 1982 UN study of the developing world's carrying capacity found that given the current low levels of agricultural technology used, about half the Sahelian countries could not be expected to feed themselves. The Sahel's demographic picture is complicated by the way different populations fill the various rainfall zones. The Sahelo-Saharan zone, the land of the nomad herders, can support a human density of only 0.3 people per square kilometer, but the density is actually 2 per square kilometer. The zone to the south, where herders and settled farmers mix, can support 15 people per square kilometer, yet it actually supports 20. the Sudano-Guinean zone at the far south may be able to support a larger population, but it has not been settled in part becuase it has spawned the tsetse fly and black fly. The region's rapidly growing population requires increased food production, yet the Sahelian countries have opted to encourage the cultivation of cash crops, especially cotton and peanuts, at the expense of food crops. Governments now are caught in the trap of depending on commodities, which are delcining in price, to pay rising debts. Extension advice, fertilizer, equipment, and marketing services are in short supply. In response to urban population pressure, Sahelian governments have kept food prices artificially low. With cities growing at an average annual rate of between 4-9%, national leaders fear social disruption and political instability if basic food needs at low prices are not met in the large cities. This policy inadvertently discourages food production. Meanwhile, the food situation for the region as a whole deteriorates to a calamity situation. The pressures of population growth and the emphasis on cash crops have forced families to try to expand grain production by cultivating marginal lands. They also have begun to ignore the fallowing technique, which should be used to allow land time to recover between crops. The need to expand land under cultivation has led to the rapid cutting of trees, trees which once acted to hold soil together and coax rainfall into the ground to raise the water table. Most of the Sahelian nations are now among the worst disaster-afflicted nations in the world. In addition to desertification, the Sahel's climate may be getting drier. Governments may have to take radical steps to change their cropping strategies and to move large numbers of people.
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