LAND-USE IN AN URBAN HINTERLAND - ETHNOGRAPHY AND REMOTE-SENSING IN THE STUDY OF AFRICAN INTENSIFICATION

In the study of African agricultural intensification, stronger inferen ces may be drawn by combining ethnographic study of small samples with the comprehensive coverage afforded by remote sensing than would be p ossible with either method alone. Study in the hinterland of Ibadan, N igeria, suggests that land use by small-scale farmers is tending to di verge into two different patterns of cropping, land use and labor inte nsity. Remote sensing analysis allows us to suggest that, largely due to market response, agricultural practice is developing in a dynamic f ashion in advance of population pressure on Ruthenberg's threshold for humid savanna agriculture of four years of cultivation to eight years of fallow.