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Hypothesis 4: Ignoring the uncultivated area which, not having been
parcelled out, does not appear in a survey of individual farms, for the
investigation of this hypothesis we can base ourselves on the proportion of
total acreage surveyed and measured on each of the family lands which was
found to be either mfofo- or odoto-Iand, i.e. land under short (up to 5 years)
or long (6-15 years) fallow.
Table 19 shows that in this respect much more uncultivated land
(401170) is available on distant family lands than on the nearby ones (25 %).
Although the expected difference in the average duration of fallow
is found to occur (the fallow on distant lands amounting to 5.3 years on
average compared to 4.5 years on the nearby family landsBit is not really
significant. To this should be added as a first proviso that these figures are
based on fallow periods of farm plots as reported by the respondents, and
are therefore tainted with all the inaccuracy of recall of events long since
past. In most cases the moment at which these plots had again been cleared
was already one or two years before the date of the interview. Consequ~ntly,
the moment at which the reported fallow period had started would by then
have been between 5 and 10 years earlier. A second proviso is that the
averages have not been weighted for the acreages under fallow.
Table 19:
Percentage of Total Area Under Fallow on
Nearby and More Distant Lands
Acreage Total
under fallow acreage 9
The more nearby family lands 31.4 112.6
The more distant family lands 36.6 92.5
Total 68.0 205.1
0,10
25
40
32
Where the evidence on the duration of fallow may be somewhat
inconclusive, the hypothesis is again supported by the percentage difference
of the acreages under (more) permanent cultivation.
100