ABSTRACT
The African continent is currently experiencing serious national and transnational environmental problems, including air and water pollution, erosion, drought, reduction of genetic diversity, inadequate waste disposal, the dumping of toxic wastes by foreign companies, and desertification. This chapter analyzes the environmental and socio-economic consequences of the principal responses to such pressures that have been adopted to date in the two most populous countries in Africa: Ethiopia and Nigeria. The consequences of the imperial government's agricultural strategy are starkly illustrated by reference to commercial development of the Awash river basin, which began in the early 1960s. There are strong indications, however, that the increasing importation and introduction of "modern" methods of large-scale, commercial crop production poses a more serious threat to Nigeria's natural resources and to the welfare of peasants and pastoralists than traditional, subsistence-oriented agricultural practices. Massive irrigation projects absorbed the largest proportion of federal government spending on agriculture under the military.
