Waiting for Rain: Agriculture and Ecological Imbalance in Cape Verde
  • 1997/212 pages

Waiting for Rain:

Agriculture and Ecological Imbalance in Cape Verde

Mark Langworthy and Timothy J. Finan
Hardcover: $65.00
ISBN: 978-1-55587-709-5
This ethnographic study of Cape Verde tackles critical development issues: the struggle for self–sufficient food security, the tension between agricultural production and natural resource sustainability, and the appropriate role of government policy in food production and natural resource management.

Cape Verde has moved into an ecological imbalance between the sustainable production capacity of the resource base and the size of the population seeking to derive a livelihood from agriculture. Within this context, the authors discuss the current agricultural practices and the forms of indigenous knowledge employed by Cape Verdean farmers; estimate the sources and magnitude of incomes among rural households; describe the natural resource base available to farmers, emphasizing the nature of constraints to production; and document the rules, both public and traditional, that define resource access and management. They also describe the past and present policies that Cape Verdean leaders have directed toward the problem of food production in a fragile ecosystem.

All the Sahelian countries face the challenge of balancing the demand for food (and income) with the capacity of the resource base to respond. Langworthy and Finan's assessment of agriculture in Cape Verde informs a thoughtful discussion of policy alternatives that may help relieve the current plight and avoid even more serious consequences in the near future.

Mark Langworthy is assistant research scientist in the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Arizona. Timothy J. Finan is director of the university's Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology.