How should we understand the complexity of innovation? The spread of maize in north Cameroon

Abraao Silvestre; José Muchnik



Printable version
How should we understand the complexity of innovation? The spread of maize in north Cameroon
Cahiers Agricultures. Volume 4, Number 3, 195-206, Mai-Juin 1995, Option
Résumé Article gratuit
Author(s) : Abraao Silvestre, José Muchnik
Summary : Along with the modernisation of peasant farming in northern Cameroon, in the earlier half of the 1970s, capital-intensive methods began to develop. Given the then agricultural crisis - cotton competing with staple food crops such as rain-fed millet and sorghum, the drop in peasant revenue following the crash in world cotton prices, the increased risk of cereal deficit in rural areas, and the latter’s inability to produce surplus stocks to feed the towns and help reduce imports - introducing maize seemed to be a very useful option. The present paper examines the geographical, historical, technical and socio-economical context of the maize innovation in northern Cameroon: âÇ“ the producers’ strategies and the role of institutions in spreading maize-growing allow the technical changes to be understood as a social product resulting from a complex process involving a number of different variables (operational, relational and cultural)\; âÇ“ analysing the market as meeting point of the various socio-economical players’ strategies allows the links between the development of innovation and the players’ changing relations to be understood\; - taking the local technical culture into account highlights the essential role of existing know-how in the adoption of innovations. The local technical culture becomes the backbone on which the innovative graft is performed. Based on these analyses, the paper assesses the consequences of maize’s spread. Social differentiation: a difference in socio-technical development between the various farmers may arise. This is due to the fact that a new technique will only be adopted if it allows for accumulation. Maize, being able to respond to increasingly high capital-intensification, seems to be a crop which allows for high accumulation. Differentiation of regional development: along the same lines in terms of technical progress, those regions which did not benefit from adopting maize found themselves worse off than the others. This is so in the province of Extreme-Nord where the rainfall handicap and lack of suitable varieties prevented the technical innovations from being catalysed as they were in other provinces. The situation there was worsened by the cotton crop falling back, resulting in the province lagging behind in terms of agricultural or socio-economical development. Be this as it may, the development of market gardening, onion growing and the popularisation of muskuwaari clearly show it has its own dynamics of innovation. Differentiation and substitution between products: one of the main consequence of maize spreading through northern Cameroon is the gradual ousting of rain-fed sorghum (main crop). The observation seems to correspond to patterns found in other countries and other continents. The paper’s conclusions could be read on two levels. Concerning maize itself: it allows new research areas to be targeted: maize seems to be an ideal basis for comparative studies. it has been successfully introduced in many countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, etc.), and a comparative analysis of innovation in different regions could allow the deciding-factors behind the human acquisition of technical skills to be indentified. More generally: we propose matrices for observing or interpreting the inovation. Looking at diversity: the diversity of types of innovation and of conditions for its emergence. Where do they arise ? In what context ? It is only by looking through the eyeglass of diversity that similarities in innovation processes may be understood. Looking at complexity: The techniques involve an interrelation of life forms where the corresponding human variables of type and culture are intricately intertwined. It is only when understanding the complexity of innovation that we can understand their consistency. Looking at movement: innovations will trigger off a series of changes hard to predict. In turn, the changes will alter the operational, cultural or relational variables. This will result in the socio-economic players having new end goals and expectations with respect to the innovation. It is only by looking at the innovations’ pathways that we can understand the data observed.
Keywords :