Agricultural policy change and indigenous agriculture: experience and re-evaluation of a shifting cultivation system In Northern Province, Zambia

Abstract

Studies of market liberalization implemented as part of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) have generally noted the strong impacts of these policies on agrarian life and the lives of local people. However, analyses of how market liberalization has affected local life have tended to present an image of "passive peasants." In this paper, I focus on the logic of local people who have responded actively to changing conditions brought about by new agricultural policies through a case study of Bemba villages in Zambia. Currently, villagers are evaluating newly introduced crops and new agricultural techniques, and reevaluating their indigenous cultivation system. I also discuss the process of change in the indigenous cultivation system, and societal effects of the introduction of market liberalization.