Rural Households in Emerging Societies Technology and Change in Sub-Saharan Africa

The constantly changing circumstances of rural life in sub-Saharan Africa have brought with them both successes and failures. The essays in this volume examine the various pressures and inducements to changing resource-use patterns faced by rural households, and explore the two-way causal relationship between technology and technological change on the one hand and other key elements of rural change - demographic, environmental, economic, social, and political - on the other. Contemporary approaches to the introduction of technical innovations are examined, and new approaches are proposed. Through case studies of particular communities, the wide-ranging impacts of past experiences are assessed, and the causes and consequences of indigenous initiatives are explored.

Contents: P. Richards, Experimenting Farmers and Agricultural Research - R. Chambers and C. Toulmin, Farmer-First: Achieving Sustainable Dryland Development in Africa - D. Hunt, Farm System and Household Economy as Frameworks for Prioritising and Appraising Technical research: A Critical Appraisal of Current Approaches - P. Starkey, Animal Traction: Constraints and Impact among African Households - J.D. van der Ploeg, Autarky and Technical Change in Rice Production in Guinea Bissau: on the Importance of Commoditisation and Decommoditisation as Interrelated Processes - C. Toulmin, Staying Together: Household Responses to Risk and Market Malfunction in Mali - M. Haswell, Population and Change in a Gambian Rural Community: 1947-1987 - J.W. Harmsworth, The Impact of the Tobacco Industry on Rural Development and Farming Systems in Arua, Uganda - A. Cheater, Issues of Energy Autarky and Interdependence among Small-scale Commercial Farmers in Zimbabwe - D. Bruinsma and R. Nout, Choice of Technology in Food Processing for Rural Development

Margaret Haswell Independent Consultant in Rural Development Diana Hunt Lecturer in Economics,School of African and Asian Studies, Sussex University