9458: Re: 9445: RE: 9422: Open Discussion (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jedidiah Daudi Lyall <postmaster@lyalls.net>

Much land in the  North, the Plain du Nord I guess, lies fallow due
not to absentee landlords, but to laziness.
Many people have relatives in the US who send money and  they
have become dependent upon this,  declining to do the hard work
of cultivation. I am  sure that I'll get flamed for saying this but I
have seen
plenty of  evidence  to support this view. 

Such as, visiting Limonade with Jacques and seeing a number of his
relatives plantations, sitting  idle. I ask "why they are not at least
growing vegetables"?
"They don't  need to" is the answer.

A ti plantation just east of Okap Internation Airport ( I love saying
that )
where I had the boys fix a flat tire on my motorcycle sits idle.
This plot is more than a hectare it appears, a large peasant plantation
really.
They grow nothing at all. There are no men in the family any more, they
went to Otazini.  They used to send money but now the women  of the
household rely on begging and renting  out  grazing land.
I  asked why they didn't plant  vegetables. No tractor. You don't
need a tractor to plant veggies. No irrigation. You don't need
irrigation
in the north. And anyway, there is a nice grand old well with lots of
water. All it needs is a bucket.

So, a culture of helplessness and dependency has taken root in
many of those folks who once fed the nation. Bummer.

>You are likely to get more answers to this question than you 
>want... yes more food can definitely be grown on the island, but only with 
>more infrastructure (irrigation canals, wells, roads, agronomic advice)
>and 
>change in land tenure patterns. 
****
>Some good  land lies fallow, owned  by absentee landlords. So  it's not an 
>easy problem to fix.

----
Se pa  pou Dadi
----
J.  David Lyall
http://www.lyalls.net/