I recently participated in a
workshop in Tot-Sibou village in Marakwet (Kenya), organized by the research
network African Farming, an interdisciplinary pan-African perspective - http://farminginafrica.wordpress.com/about/.
During the workshop I focused on
local perceptions of land and soils in the village, comparing the current
situation with field notes from my first visits to this area in the 1970s. I am
now drafting a paper on this theme. Farmers examine soil fertility by colour
and tactilely by feeling and touching. The aim of this engagement with soil is
to determine whether the soil is “swelling” (meaning bursting with fertility,
ready to be planted). Also other conditions are taken into account when decisions are made on what fields to cultivate the up-coming cultivation season, as for
instance whether irrigation water can reach the fields and what crops would
be suitable for different lands. The phrase used is “what will this crop eat?”.
Once
a particular cultivation area has been identified a new process starts to find out if the land is not only
fertile but if also the anticipated harvest will materialise; pests may destroy
crops, rains may fail etc. A series of events, including the lighting of a fire
and the observing of the actions of the resulting smoke, determine if the land
“agrees” to be cultivated in the coming season. Having established this, it is
time for the preparation and cleaning of irrigation furrows, clearing the land,
fencing of fields etc. Fields are then divided between members of the localised
lineages to create smaller family plots. The cultivation season
proceeds via a series of events, which I argue are as much a socio-cultural
concern as an agro-technical undertaking. In the paper I am currently writing I
explore the interconnectedness of these practices.
