Abstract
This paper describes West African farming practices and knowledge that lead to the formation of carbon-rich high-fertility African Dark Earths (AfDE) – human-made soils analogous to Amazonian terra preta, yet subject to continuing production and use. Gender relations and women’s roles are central to how these soils are produced and used. Through social and ecological field studies in Liberia and Sierra Leone we detail how AfDE formation and associated knowledge is gender-differentiated, the central roles of women’s deposition of charred organic materials from cooking, oil palm processing and potash production in producing AfDE, and the gendered dynamics of AfDE use and distribution in the landscape. Different species are cultivated in AfDE compared to non-anthropogenic soils, and AfDE are differentially valued by women and men for horticultural and tree crops. The spatial distribution of AfDE across the landscape reflects shifting household, marriage and settlement practices. Gender relations, subjectivities and interdependencies and the ecology of soils and landscapes mutually shape one another. National policymakers and NGOs planning or managing agricultural carbon projects in West Africa should attend to the knowledge and practices of Loma and Mende women and men who have made and cultivated carbon-rich anthropogenic soils in the region for generations.
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Acknowledgments
This article draws on research funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC RES-062-23-2310) through the grant ‘Anthropogenic dark earths in Africa?’ to Sussex University, and the ‘Biochar’ project of the ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological and environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre, and we gratefully acknowledge this financial support. We thank too, other members of the collaborative research programme from which the research reported here derives, including soil scientists Johannes Lehmann and Dawit Solomon at Cornell University, Søren M. Kristiansen at Aarhus University, Denmark and anthropologists Kojo Amanor at the University of Legon in Ghana and Dominique Millimouno at Cabinet Universitaire de Recherches-Actions, Kissidougou, Republic of Guinea. Our joint work is cited. Thanks are also due to the townspeople of Wenwuta, Mapuma, Buma and Yanihun; to Hans-Peter Mueller and the Welthungerhilfe/Food Security and Economic Development project in Sierra Leone and to Jeanette Carter of the University of Liberia for their assistance and support. We thank Moussa Diabaté, Pépé Beavogui and Kaman Guilavogui of IRAG, CRA, Seredou, Guinea and Carel Jonkind, of Wageningen University for assistance in plant and tree identification. Any errors of fact and judgment rest with the authors.
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Frausin, V., Fraser, J.A., Narmah, W. et al. “God Made the Soil, but We Made It Fertile”: Gender, Knowledge, and Practice in the Formation and Use of African Dark Earths in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Hum Ecol 42, 695–710 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-014-9686-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-014-9686-0