The Market Economy

Village marketplaces

Some of the larger villages in the savanna east of the Mikea Forest host weekly markets. People from the local area sell agricultural produce, wild foods, fish, coffee, snacks (doughnuts, fried fish), and rum. Other merchants make a regular circuit of village markets where they retail tobacco, medicine, clothing, shoes, pots, pans, soap, sugar, salt, oxcart parts, tools, Coca-Cola, beer, etc. which they have bought wholesale in the provincial capital of Toliara.

Commercial foraging

Mikea sometimes forage for wild tubers, tenrecs, honey, birds, and fish specifically to sell at the market. Products such as wild silk and sea cucumbers are only collected for sale.

Mobile retailing, Manao kinanga / kasave

Kinanga, also called kasave, is the practice of buying goods where they are cheap and reselling them elsewhere for a profit. A common scheme is to buy fish on the coast, transport them by foot (photo right) 37 km to the savanna, and sell them to protein-hungry farmers. The reverse route is also common: maize or manioc purchased in the savanna is resold on the coast, where the higher demand for carbohydrates means a better selling price.

Wage labor

Wealthy farmers will pay Mikea men to clear or harvest their fields or guard their cattle; they pay women to replant rice shoots.