FORGOTTEN WORLD: THE STONE-WALLED SETTLEMENTS OF THE MPUMALANGA ESCARPMENT by Peter Delius, Tim Maggs and Alex Schoeman (Wits University Press)
When we think and interrogate the notion of food and food security, it is almost at all times in the realms of the food regime and this seems to ignore that people had always had relations with food and food secured themselves way before the global food systems.
The forgotten world gives an insight on the people (Bokoni people) who were perhaps way ahead of their time with regard to their techniques and scale of farming crops and livestock. It is through this people that we come to witness another way of farming that is not documented or rather well documented when we address farming of the 16th century especially in the African context.
The Bokoni people are the people who settled the Mpumalanga Escarpment in the 16th century and have gone to significant lengths in order to farm the escarpment. The Bokoni people participated in large scale intensive farming for reasons not discovered with certainty but with links to self-sufficiency and trade. They were faced with challenges such as the steep slopes, erosion, runoff and lack of infiltration issues.
They have overcome the challenges through the use of stone and the actual building of stone walls which constitutes agricultural terracing. We see the evidence of such ruins in the present day of the use of stones to create homesteads that include a kraal for the the livestock, agrarian terraces that separated fields thus allowing the trapping of sediments and water, and prevented the cattle from reaching the farmlands. There are also cattle roads that gives the indication that cattle was moved in and out of the homesteads to the open field for grazing and drinking water which is typical of the much later commercial farming.
The Bakoni seems to have traded with people in the north such as Phalaborwa for iron from which they made their hoes for farming, with this in mind it can be said that the Bakone almost had a closed system when it came to the farming. They maximised the use of the land through the use of agrarian terraces, the basalts and the cattle’s dung for manure.
Even though this civilization is nowhere to be found today, their remains brings back their existence in our history and begs the question of had this civilization been fortunate enough to continue, where would it be in terms of agriculture and would there have been the need for the emergence of Agribusiness?
FOOD DYNAMICS 