ABSTRACT
In discussing low-resource agriculture in tropical Africa, it is necessary to relate the discussion to the physical environments which set the outer limits on how farmers organize resources for production. The tropical rain forest zone is characterized by high annual rainfall and rainfall distributed throughout the year. The natural vegetation is dense forest. This produces a growing environment in which nutrients are recycled rapidly, being released from decaying vegetable and animal matter by the activities of decomposer organisms and almost immediately being taken up by the roots of trees and other plants. Many African societies are keenly aware of their agricultural heritage. Sorghum, pearl millet, and yams were all domesticated in Africa. The Ethiopian highlands, like the Zagros Mountains in the Middle East, were a region of rather abrupt altitudinal changes in vegetation zones that apparently proved favorable for experimentation in the domestication of crops and livestock.
