| Wetland ecosystems and the customary production activities of thousands of riverine dwellers in Africa are currently at threat as extensive catchment areas are increasingly earmarked by river basin planners for impoundment by large dams. The perturbing effects of such infrastructures on the physical ecology and socioeconomy of affected human communities downstream has received scant attention by river basin planners and policy-makers. This study examines the projected environmental and economic impacts resulting from construction of two dams, a high barrage at Manantali, Mali, and a salt intrusion dam at Diama, Senegal, on three wetland communities in the Matam department, the middle Senegal River Valley.; Two principal research themes are explored: (1) the nature of agrarian transformation in the middle Senegal Valley, whereby local commodity markets, particularly in labor, are increasingly shaped by permutations of the political economy at the regional, national, and international level; and (2) a thesis on human occupation and exploitation of a wetland habitat calling for its preservation and enhancement rather than extinction, on environmental and socioeconomic grounds.; Data collection covered an amalgam of activities including the monitoring of all household farm production activities, family budgetary patterns on revenue and expenditure, and household food consumption regimens. Data on farm production are used to assess the comparative advantage of factor inputs in land, labor, and capital that shape the reproductive strategies of peasant households.; The principal research finding suggests that producers opt to achieve their food security by spreading risk across a broad range of production options, both on and off the farm. This is achieved, in part, by freeing up labor seasonally and long-term for off-farm wage migration. It is the adaptive nature of customary wetland farming regimes, both ecologically, in their self-regenerating capacity, and economically, in their modest demand for labor and capital, that enables farm households to achieve this goal. This finding is significant in that it directly contradicts the development policy optic of the state which is to retain rural labor on the farm for increased participation in irrigated rice agriculture. |
