According to Erik P. Burke, Reinhabitation is a process of moving from industrial to more locally adapted food systems (Burke 2002). For many decades, the world food system has been dominated by large corporations that produce huge amount of food to primarily make profits and then to be able to feed an increasingly growing population. However, concerns over the quality of food produced and it impacts on the environment have recently raised among consumers that now seek alternatives ways to produce food. Most people agree that food should be produced locally because it tends to be organic and less damaging to the environment. In this process, many associations of farmers have been created in Oregon and all over the United States to encourage locally grown food. However, even though the percentage of locally grown food has been increasing in the past few years, it share is still relatively small compared to conventional agriculture. This is partially due to the fact that people have lost their connections to lands and can no longer grow their own food. Native people, who know how to manage the lands, have been chased out of their lands and there are only a few people remaining to teach Americans how to use lands. Nevertheless, the hope is that Americans’ alternative food system will grow strong enough to be able to feed a larger portion of the population. Like the United States, many other countries such as Gabon want to shift from conventional to a more locally grown food system. However, they are facing the same problems as Americans do, including loss of connections with their lands and lack of agricultural knowledge. In the following lines, we are going to have a brief history of Gabon, the difficulties it is facing in the process of going “green”, the measures that have been taken to remedy to its food problem, and finally the hope for the future.
Gabon is located in central Africa near the equator. With a population of 1.5million people, the country is mostly covered by tropical rainforest (about 70%). Before the arrival of explorers in the early 15th century Gabon was covered by about 90% of forest and Gabonese people, constituted of Pygmies and Bantu at the time, were mostly living from hunting, fishing, and gathering (Mba 1992). Once explorers, who later on became colonizers, came and took over the country, they shifted the way people were living. Many hectares of forests were converted into logging areas and people living there were forcefully chased away. People were forbidden to grow food because that would mean wasting lands that could be used for natural resources extraction including gold, iron, manganese, and softwood (Mba 1992). Colonizers imposed native people to live like them as a sign of dominance and to completely forget about their cultures. They wanted people to eat, speak and act like them. In order to succeed in their colonization, they taught native people their language (French) and made sure that children were spending most of their times (even summers) in schools learning about Europe and not their cultures. As time and generations changed, people started forgetting about their culture and were now more like their colonizers. They lost connections with their lands and were completely dependent on food imports (mostly from France). Children did neither know how to speak their native languages anymore nor did they know where their food was exactly coming from. The elders that knew the lands were slowly disappearing.
Only after the country became independent in 1960, some changes started happening. In fact, leaders realized that their ways of living made them dependent and vulnerable to other countries because in case of political discords, those countries could stop selling them food and that would mean “famine” for the entire population. At the same time, they thought that growing food locally would likely be less expensive than continue importing. The biggest problem was that leaders did not know where to start. In fact, new generations did not know anything about agriculture or the management of lands.
The minister of agriculture then had to launch programs led by foreign experts to teach local people how to grow food. Those programs would be on a one year period. Six months in class learning techniques to grow food and six months out in the fields applying their knowledge through hands-on-experiences (Mba 1992). It has been 10 years since such programs have been initiated and Gabonese experts have replaced foreign ones in the teaching of agriculture to their own people. Also, as we are moving toward a more sustainable agriculture, agroecology is also taught to a growing number of farmers. As of today, 10% of consumed food is locally grown. It may seem like a small percentage but it is better than 10 years ago when 99.9% of our food was coming from overseas (Mba 1992).
In summary, like the United States, many countries want to get most of their food if not all of it from local farmers. However they are facing many challenges such as loss of connections with their lands and lacks of knowledge about agriculture. This was notably the case in Gabon. But through education and special trainings, Gabonese people were able to learn about different farming techniques and apply them on the ground. They also regain their lost connections with the lands. Even though locally grown food still represents a small portion of the total consumption of the population, it is better than 10 years ago. The hope is that 50 years from now, locally grown food would contribute to 50% of all the food consumed in the country since the Gabonese population is not too large.
Work Cited
-Burke, Erik (2002). “Food Systems in the Marys River Region and Reinhabitation”. Chapters 1&3. Abstract retrieved from Burke’s thesis for his Master of Art in Applied Anthropology.
-Mba, Leon. “History and culture of Gabon.” Memorial du Gabon .Multipress Gabon, 1992. 20-70 print