Essay 6 3 pages long

Sub-Saharan Africa: Physiography

Friends, we are going to spend some time in Sub-Saharan Africa, three lectures altogether. There is a good reason for that. Sub- Saharan Africa truly is the underbelly of human civilization because of its underdevelopment, backwardness, and its many conflicts. I want you to think in terms of what could be done to alleviate the mass misery and a sense of hopelessness the people of this continent live with. Why should we care? We live a globalized world in which what happens in the farthest corners of the world

affects the rest of the world in one way or another. Africa south of the Sahara Desert (the picture) is a vast and varied region, and it is home to over 500 million people. It also is a great store of natural resources. Yet, when we think about this region, a variety of images, most of them negative, come to our mind: jungles, deserts, drought, famine, ruthless dictators, wars, poverty, and more. Some of these images are product of our being influenced by exaggerated and unfair portrayal of Africa in the mass media. However, we cannot deny the fact that it is a region that still symbolizes underdevelopment, backwardness, and to many, hopelessness. We are going to try to understand why.

Let me start with some numbers first. A Sub-Saharan African’s life expectancy is 47 for male and 49 for female. As a whole, this realm’s per capita Gross National Income (GNI) is about $1,970. Nearly half of the people in the region survive on less than $1of income per day. Africans who constitute about 20 percent of worldwide population generates 1.5 percent of the worldwide Gross National Product. In the last 30 years, there have been 30 wars and 80 coup d’états. In the last 40 years Sub-Saharan Africa received $400 billion in foreign assistance, but without much to show for in terms of socio- economic development. The map below show which areas suffer from chronic malnutrition, food shortages, and famines. US Agency for International Development reports the following: “The problem of hunger in Africa is widespread and getting worse. The numbers are staggering. It is estimated that one in three people in Africa are currently undernourished and that a third of all the world’s undernourished people reside in sub-Saharan Africa. According to a USDA study, by 2010 Africa may account for nearly two-thirds of the undernourished people in the world.” I can go on like this, but let me stop here. Refer to the map below. What happened to this continent that symbolizes richness of natural resources?

I am going to devote this lecture to physiography of Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa’s physical environment is beautiful, yet, challenging. The following is how one geographer describes Sub-Saharan Africa’s environment.

“The landscape of Sub-Saharan Africa offers a palette of intense colors: deep red soils studded with plantings of subsistence crops; the blue of the tropical sky; golden savannas that ripple with the movement of animal herds; dark rivers meandering through towering rainforests; and sun drenched deserts. Amid this beauty, however, one finds relatively poor soils, endemic disease, and vulnerability to drought.”

In other words, Sub-Saharan Africa looks good from the sky, but as far as supporting a large population, it possesses major

challenges. Let’s discuss the soil first. How is rich farmland begotten? Fertile agricultural land is generated by the alluvial soil deposited by “rivers, volcanoes, glaciers, and windstorms” over a long period of time. Over the years, this deposits form a thick layer of soil with rich nutrients thereby capable of supporting intensive food production. A typical alluvial soil is found along the stream that is rich in nutrients. In Sub-Saharan Africa, unfortunately lacks this “agent of soils renewal” mostly because it lacks extensive river systems, such as Amazon in South American, Mississippi in the U.S., or Nile in Egypt. In other words, Sub-Saharan Africa does not have a whole lot of alluvial lowlands where rivers periodically deposit fertile silt that makes land productive. Now, what type of land is found in Sub- Saharan Africa?

First, tropical rainforest. Sub-Saharan Africa lies entirely in tropical and subtropical latitudes, which means it has extremely high level of heat and moisture. Thus in the plateaus and river basin, helped by this combination of high moisture and heat, vegetation grows uncontrollably. The rainforests are environmental treasure clove, but as far as food production and human habitation is concerned, it is most challenging. What is happening in the rainforest is that trees and wild plants consume most of the nutrients in the soil. Without clearing the trees and wild vegetation, food-producing crops have no chance of survival there. Therefore,

farmers slash trees and burn them to enrich the soil first, then plant. This slash and burning, on the other hand, causes environmental and ecological destruction thereby inviting heavily criticism from the outside world. But from a practical point of view, slash and burn is not an efficient way of agricultural production. After a couple of years of farming the soil starts to exhaust because there is no “agent of soil renewal.” Then there are the savannas (mostly in the outer fringe of tropical rainforests that are “dominated by a mixture of trees and tall grasses in the wetter zones…and shorter grasses with fewer grasses in the drier zones.” (By the way Savanna serves as an essential habitat for Africa’s wildlife.) The Savanna is rich with iron and aluminum but few nutrients. Here, crazing is more common than food production. Also, in the dry savanna, the sun bakes the soil hard and dry so farmers must water and fertilize them to ensure a crop. But water is scarce and fertilizer expensive. Obviously yields tend to be small. (Savanna is beautiful, as seen in the

picture here but is it conducive to food production?) And there is Sahel (to the right) -- a semi-desert transition zone between the Sahara and Savanna. As far as quality of soil is concerned, Sahel does allow some food production. However, because it is situated near deserts, Sahel is exposed to drought that leads to massive famines northeastern Africa is well known for. Africa’s Sahel is increasingly being turned into deserts as shown in the picture to your right. This desertification results from improper cultivation and over grazing, leading to the loss of soil. Desert of course cannot support a large, organized society.

To your left, you will find what is known as elevation data. Green signifies moist lowland, whereas red reflects high/dry area. That means some of the reddish areas are prone to drought. Apply what we discussed in this lecture on Africa’s physiography in reading this map. You will realize that Africa does not have that many places where intensive food production can be done, such as the Midwestern part of the United States. Also, it is not difficult to see that Africa is not crisscrossed by network of rivers. Not all corners of Sub-Saharan Africa are arid, dry, or infertile. For example, the Ethiopian Highlands in East Africa is well known for its fertile soil. However, such places are only a small part of Africa. To borrow what our textbook writes, with population exploding, soil exhaustion is even more intensified. “Soils cannot rest, and pastures are

overgrazed. As land becomes degraded, yields decline. Let us take a look at Nigeria, which used to be the world’s largest producer and leading exporter of palm oil. Now, because of soil exhaustion as well as mismanagement, Nigeria has to import palm oil. As I have said, there are good lands in Africa, of

course. However, productive lands taken away from black tribes and clans in the process known as land alienation, are mostly owned by white farmers. In case of South Africa, as one Geographer has noted, Black population “was forcibly resettled onto ‘homelands’ with poor agricultural potential in the eastern half of the country. Due in part to overcrowding, these areas have suffered from severe forms of environmental degradation, especially soil erosion and overgrazing.” Well, all blame should not be placed on the quality of soil for Sub-Saharan Africa’s

agricultural crisis. Western colonialism contributed significantly to this process. Before Western countries began to colonize Africa, land ownership was mostly communal. In other words, farms did not belong to individuals who had legal claims. In that system of communal land ownership, individuals could not exhaust soil for one’s own gain. For example, in the old days, communities could decide to let certain farms to lie fallow. Also, the villages could limit the number of animals to prevent overgrazing, which lead to desertification. (The legacies of Western imperialism on Africa will be discussed in more detail in the next lecture.) In any event, in the region where seventy percent of people depend on farming for their livelihood, eleven million tons of cereal must be imported from outside markets every year. (One interesting feature of Sub- Saharan agriculture is the fact that women are responsible for farming whereas men are responsible for animal grazing and public affairs.)

As we have discussed while studying Western Europe, strong agricultural base is the prerequisite of a highly developed society. Strong agricultural base provides more than food to defeat the hunger. It allows capital accumulation via selling of agricultural surplus and cash crop. That capital then can be invested into other productive endeavors. Also, a strong agricultural society provides social cohesion because quite often farming requires organized labor and village cooperation. Lacking it due to environmental challenges and legacies of colonialism, as well as internal conflicts that disrupt people’s lives, Sub-

Saharan African remains the agricultural continent that cannot feed itself.