Farmers’ capability and institutional incapacity in reclaiming disturbed land on the Jos Plateau, Nigeria

The approaches adopted by local farmers and official agencies to the question of reclamation of areas damaged by tin mining on the Jos Plateau, Nigeria are compared. Local farmers have been ‘informally’ using disturbed land for much of this century. The ‘formal’ (State) sector has only been operational since 1948, when regulations requiring mining companies to reinstate mined lands were introduced. Both sectors have sought to return disturbed land to productive agricultural use, although their strategies have varied. The effectiveness of the contrasting approaches adopted by the two sectors was assessed by means of participatory interviews, archival research and field and laboratory analysis of soil. As a result of the initial failure of the formal sector to create suitable soils for sustained agriculture in the short-term, a long-term strategy of first planting restored areas with exotic Eucalypts was adopted. Evidence is presented to demonstrate the failure of this strategy both in terms of income generation for the community and the intended enhancement of soil fertility. Conversely, the small farmers have created fertile soils by using a combination of traditional organic manures, modern inorganics and town refuse ash. With the current temporary cessation of reclamation activities, the opportunity should be taken for a reappraisal of the reclamation policies adopted by the formal sector. The ‘level, in-fill and plant Eucalypt’ strategy should be replaced with one more understanding of farmer approaches to soil amelioration and improvement and the conditions under which reclamation activities of farmers has flourished.