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Agriculture

Slash-and-Burn Maize fields, Hatsake

Mikea elders claim that they have always planted maize (Zea mays) in burned patches of the forest. But from 1980 - 2002 maize was a cash crop. Traders purchased maize in bulk from Mikea farmers and exported it to the Seychelles where it was used as pig feed. In 2002, a conglomeration of conservation organizations enforced a ban on the practice.

There are several strategies for planting hatsake. The easiest and lowest yielding is called poakafo, a field made by burning without chopping any trees. A new field made by felling trees in the forest and burning them is called hatsabao. Farmers replant fields for several years. A reused field is called monka. Fields are typically planted for two or three years and then abandonned. Old hatsake corn fields turn into mondra, anthropogenic clearings.


Newly burned hatsabao Monka, before planting Hatsake Mondra clearing


Manioc (cassava)
Sweet manioc (Manihot dulcis) is a root crop that grows well in the dry, sandy soil of southwestern Madagascar. It is typically more labor intensive than maize, for fields must be weeded 2 to 4 times during the 8 - 12 month period from planting to harvest. The greens are eaten, too. Sundried manioc, which has the consistency of chalk, may be stored for a year or two and still be edible, if boiled into a porridge.


Rice

Rice (Oryza sativa) is among the most highly valued foods throughout Madagascar. Some Mikea households grow irrigated rice in the waterways of the Iovy Floodplain, or more rarely, in the Namonte Basin (as pictured).

Wet rice cultivation requires a large investment of labor. First, rice seed is scattered on a flooded swatch called a limbary (photo right). Soon after the rice has germinated, each individual rice shoot is replanted by hand in a new flooded field, with even spacing between each plant. The water level must be kept constant, so the rice farmer must rebuild ditches and balwarks until harvest time. Then rice must be winnowed and threshed to remove the chaff.


Gardens
People make gardens just about anywhere that they can find suitable soil and sufficient moisture-- particularly, in lakebeds (photo left) and in coastal gardens where they irrigate plants individually by bucket (photo right). The latter requires a nearby freshwater well.

I have seen the following crops grown in such gardens: various greens (photo left); maize (photo right); manioc, sweet potatoes, watermelon, pumpkins, sugarcane, tomatoes, butterbeans, vohem beans, and sorghum.

Sometimes these gardens contain fruit trees, including orange, lemon, jujube, papaya, and banana.

Notice that both of these gardens are enclosed to protect them from livestock.