THE SOUTHEAST ALLOCHTHONOUS GROUP AND GINGER CULTIVATION: FALAISE-EST BETSIMISARAKA. DISTRICT OF BRICKAVILLE, ATSINANANA REGION (MADAGASCAR)

Agronomy and Management

In Madagascar, as in all African countries, climate change is leading to migration, particularly to rural areas. The high-altitude area of Brickaville in the Atsinanana Region is marked by a strong migration of people from south-east Madagascar. A multi-faceted relationship is forged between this social group and its environment in the production of ginger (sakarivo). Although the ginger-growing area, located in a border zone between the Region of Alaotra-Mangoro (18°56'58.1" S and 48°13'48.3" E) and the Region of Atsinanana (18°8'57.1" S and 49°24'8.4" E), would normally have been an area of inter-ethnic confrontation linked to land, a certain loosening of local land tenure rights on the part of the natives has been observed. At the same time, the ginger-free zone of Brickaville, at low altitude, is characterized by land saturation, and therefore by a scarcity of land for new arrivals. These contradictory realities lead us to formulate the following problem: "How can we present the cultivation of ginger as the only central factor sufficient to attract these migrants from the South-East to settle in the high-altitude areas of Brickaville or on the Betsimisaraka East Cliff? The aim is to define the complexity of the migratory system of the population coming from the South-East. The systemic approach and the commodity chain approach have enabled us to see the choices of crops and the anchoring of ginger. These choices are related to the order of importance of the speculations. The reasons for the territorialization of ginger cultivation in this specific area are linked to the land capacity and the essartage system, which enables these migrants to adopt the appropriate land appropriation system for this cash crop. These elements are the central factors determining this situation, which explains why ginger cultivation is one of the migratory strategies.

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