ABSTRACT
Customary law is the basis on which the African farmer acts and decides his economic strategy. The British found it useful to conceive that they had, by conquest, taken over the rights of the Sultan of Sokoto as ultimate controller of the land. All land was therefore state land, on which farmers had customary rights of usufruct. In most of the former French colonies, all waters belong to public domain by law, except for wells and cisterns built by individlauls on their own land. Partial control systems are those where either the inflow or the outflow of water is regulated or partially regulated by human constructions. One is concerned with flood recession land, swamps, polders and valley bottoms. Main problems an sing on this and similar schemes such as Rahad have been due to the failure to allow for continued interest in livestock, and the fact that settlers still have access to rainfed land for sorghum off the scheme.
