Indigenous horticulture is practised in various ways across all inhabited continents. Indigenous refers to the native peoples of a given area and horticulture is the practice of small-scale intercropping.
Africa North Africa In North Africa, one such example is the farming practices of the Eggon, a Nigerian hill farming community. The Eggon live in the Mada hills, between Lafia and Akwanga. The hills lay between two rivers, the Mada and Arikya. The altitude helps crops retain moisture on the hills, due to early morning mists and fogs; this also makes for earlier and longer crop cultivation. They practice bush fallow agriculture as well as mixed farming land management styles. They focus on growing yams, cassava, maize, beans, and African rice; much of what is produced is exported as a cash crop and is their secondary source of cash income. The Eggon use a terraced agricultural system to maximize space on the hills. The goats they raise are kept mostly for fertilizers used in farming. They are only killed on special occasions, such as weddings. The Eggon use the diversity in their environment to maximize their crop production.
West Africa In West Africa, the Kissidougou live on the savannah, dotted by dense areas of "forest islands" created by them. The Kissidougou practice intercropping within the forested areas. However, they also operate farms maintained on slopes or plateaus located between the forest islands. They prepare the savannah lands for forestation through farming and burning of the grasses to fertilize the soils. The Kissidougou graze their cattle on the savannah to help to maintain flammable grasses around the farms and the villages. The Kissidougou create diversity in their environment by farming and transforming savannah into lush, dense forest.
The prevalence of wetlands in West Africa has helped to support local indigenous horticulture. Seasonal flooding of major rivers in the region, such as the Niger, the Sudd, and the Senegal, have made it possible for flood-cropping in many areas. Indigenous people have utilized a variety of irrigation techniques in order to take advantage of this flooding. Additionally, they plan their plantings and harvests specifically around the flooding of local rivers. For example, some farmers choose to plant on rising floods and harvest as the flooding diminishes. This techniques is utilized when cultivating rice.Adams 1993
East Africa East Africa is one of the areas most affected by corporate farming. In western Uganda, there is a farming society called the Banyankore. Their land is part of the Ryampara hill country, between two flat, dry, and less populated areas of land. On the hills, the average monthly rainfall is 970mm, with two short dry months in June and July and a short, less severe, dry month in January. Seven months out of the year the rainfall is over 1000mm per month. Their primary crop productions are bananas and coffee; they use these as cash crops. Farmers still use substantial areas for millet farming. This is their main food crop. They have intensive home gardens to produce for the families' needs and the outlying farming is used mostly for cash crop production, where coffees and bananas are cultivated using intercropping methods.
Southern Africa In Southern Africa, conglomerates of farming companies have primarily written-off the lands in Northwest Zambia. The land is mostly made of plateaus, with lower-lying lands in the Kabompo and Zambezi river valleys. Much of the area is in the Congo–Zambezi watershed, the area of land where all the sources of water run into the same river basin. The land has several types of soil. There are areas of yellow clay, with higher concentrations of sand, where higher rainfall causes soil erosion; this makes farming in those areas difficult. There are also areas with fertile red clay; these are rich soils good for cultivation of crops. Farmers in the area grow sorghum, millet, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and maize. There is marginal maize production, used as a cash crop for the community. The area is usually covered by thick forestation that must be cleared before crops can be cultivated; they do not practice agroforestry. Traditionally, spouses must maintain their own gardens. The produce is shared communally, but the practice leads to intensive home gardens that are maintained by the women of the villages.
South Pacific Highlander horticulture The Enga of the Western Highlands Province in New Guinea receive most of their food from growing sweet potatoes Ipomoea batatas which they plant in mulch mounds at elevations up to 2,700 m or higher.Dove and Carpenter 2008 The mounds that the Enga make to plant their crops of potatoes are formed from by piling large amounts of grass taken from fallow, or unplanted, plots then by covering the grass with dirt.Wohlt 2004 The size of the mounds depends on elevation; the higher the elevation; the bigger the mounds will be. Mounds above 2,500 m in altitude can have a height of 0.85 m in height; while crops below 1,500 m are not mounded at all.Dove and Carpenter 2008 The function of the mound is to protect the crops from the frequent frosts that occur at the high altitudes of the Enga. With sweet potatoes having a very long maturation period of nine months, the Enga also invest their time and space on the mounds with planting other crops that have much shorter maturation periods such as peas in case a heavy frost does claim the crop.Wohlt 2004
The planting of the mounds is done so that the plants which have a higher frost tolerance, such as the Irish potatoes, are planted casually throughout the mound and the low tolerant sweet potatoes are planted in the best position to avoid the frost. Peas, beans, and cabbage which are all highly tolerant to frost will be planted outside the circle of sweet potatoes and lower on the mound placing them closer to the cold temperatures of the ground.Dove and Carpenter 2008 The Enga practice fallow rotation where a garden will in crop for about four years followed by about four years of fallow grassland to let the soil replenish.Wohlt 2004
Garden size for an average Enga garden is about 0.21 hectare or about 2,100 square meters and can contain a few hundred mounds.Wohlt 2004 Another gardening strategy the Enga have implemented is the use of kin lands that are usually within one to two days walk from the farmers normal planting grounds.Dove and Carpenter 2008 The uses of multiple gardens at differing elevation and the ability access clan lands in different areas for gardening have allowed the Enga to adapt to their environment and survive under harsh conditions.
Lowland Swidden cultivation Swidden cultivation is an extensive agriculture practice that is also known as slash-and-burn agriculture. The process is extensive because it requires a vast amount of land divided into several plots with one plot planted for a period of years, while the other plots lay fallow for a number of years.Hyde 2010
For the Bine-speaking peoples of the New Guinea lowlands swidden cultivation is a main practice for crop propagation. The main crop the Bine grow is the taro root, although they grow about 15 subsidiary crops including: sweet potato, banana, manioc, maize, yam, pawpaw, sugar cane, pineapple, and others.Eden 1993 The swiddens which can be placed in either savannas or forests are created by cutting down all the vegetation in the area that the swidden will be. The farmers then pile all of the cut vegetation on the swidden plot and leave it to dry out through the dry season.Hyde 2010 Right before the wet season begins the piles are burned and the soil and ash are tilled together.Eden 1993 The process of tilling the soil and ash mixes the carbon and nitrogen rich ash into the soil thereby fertilizing the soil for the coming crop. After the soil is tilled the crops are planted.
There are two planting years for a single swidden for the Bine farmers. In the first year the Bine plant primary taro root with a few subsidiary crops like bananas and sweet potatoes. In the second year taro root makes up about 50 percent of the swidden and the rest of the swidden is mixed with about 15 other plants. After the second year the Bine farmers move on to an adjacent swidden and allow the previous swidden to lay fallow or unplanted for a period of 5 to 10 years in order to repopulate the vegetation.Eden 1993 The number of years that a swidden will lay fallow is determined by the plants demand for the nitrogen in the soil. Some plants will leach the soil of nitrogen in a few years and require four or five times that fallow; while other plants can be planted for many years and lay fallow only one or two times the planting period.Hyde 2010 Swidden cultivation requires a lot of land in order to feed only a few people, but the Bine, whose numbers are low, make good uses of their land through swidden farming.
Island horticulture For most South Pacific Island cultures the main subsistence techniques are hunting and gathering. Fishing and the gathering of sago, banana, and other tropical foods are the norm with very little organized agriculture. The Tabalu of Kiriwina located in the Trobriand Islands practice a form of agriculture called Kaylu'ebila, a form of garden magic.Malinowski 1965 The main crop for the Tabalu is the yam and there is a definite division of labour according to sex when it comes to gardening. Heavy work is done by the men and it includes clearing the vegetation, caring the yam supports, and planting the yam tubers in the ground.Malinowski 1987 The women aid by weeding the gardens.
Gardening for the Tabalu is a very long and in depth magical process; with special magicians and magical ingredients which have been handed down from family member to family member over time. Garden fields which are called Kwabila are fenced in on all sides to keep out the swine that are breed by the Tabalu. Kwabila are then divided into many smaller plots called baleko, these are the individual gardens that the crops will be planted in.Malinowski 1965
South America South America consists of modern-day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Suriname, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. South America has historically been a land exploited not only for its natural resources, but also for its indigenous knowledge and labor force. The environmental diversification of South America has been at the foundation of its presence in the global economy as a resource for agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, livestock, mining and quarrying.
South America can be seen as cultural regions inhabited by marginal tribes, tropical forest tribes, and the circum-Caribbean tribes each with its own distinct way of agricultural cultivation.Lyon 1974, 6 South America's geographic regions are inhabited by regional tribes which include; the Chocó in the Northern Columbian area, The Kayapo in the Eastern Para area, the Chono in the Southern Fuegian area, and the Quechuas in the Western Peruvian area,Lyon 1974, 24 Each of these regions has adapted not only their own cultural identity and agricultural style,
The Eastern region of South America is known as the Para area in what is now Brazil, and has for millennia been home to the tropical forest Kayapớ tribe. The Kayapớ lived in sedentary villages and were proficient in pottery and loom-weaving, yet they did not domesticate animals or poses knowledge on metallurgy. These Tropical forest Tribes can be characterized through their farming, dugout canoes, woven baskets, loom weaving, and pole and thatch houses.Posey 2002