ABSTRACT
"Desertification" suggests a trend toward a drier set of mean conditions, including a change toward vegetation in equilibrium with the new situation. The contrast between the dry conditions in the Sahel in the late 1960's and 1970's and the so-called normal rainfall of the early and mid-twentieth century is often interpreted as a trend toward increasing aridity, i.e., desertification. A culture must be able to adjust to a fluctuating, rather than a mean set, of environmental conditions, and agricultural practices must allow for such adaptation. Diversification of species used for food will provide one way of coping with this and for avoiding those conditions which may lead to irreversible damage in areas under stress. The lowland area of the Niger Bend, about 80 km west of Tombouctoo, which had been devastated by drought in the mid-eighteenth century and ravaged again within the last decade, became in the 1880's and 1890's the most important wheat-producing area of West Africa.
