Market Gardening in the Volcanic Soils of the Bamoun Plateau (West-Cameroon). Territorial and Socioenvironmental Mutations

Thèse de Doctorat de l'année 2021 dans le domaine Sciences de la Terre / Géographie - Géographie régionale, Université de Yaoundé I, langue: français, résumé: The volcanic soils of Bamoun Plateau are among the major agricultural basins of Cameroon. Formerly considered a coffee basin on the scale of the western highlands, these soils were victims of the economic crisis that shook Cameroon in the late 1980's and will push peasant communities and coffee growers to opt for agricultural conversion. This Doctoral thesis has identified and characterized four types of volcanic lands: devitalized volcanic lands, deep volcanic lands, volcanic lands with high market potential and peri-urban volcanic lands. Depending on the parameters such as the level of income, the size of the farmed area, the share reserved for self-consumption in total production the researcher's team identified five types of market gardeners in its study area. Socially and with regard to participation, endogenous and exogenous strategies are put to permanent use by the territorial actors to make the most of market gardening practices. Finally, considering that the present work is part of the logic of Research-Action-Development and is a contribution to the sustainable management of rural territories, it is relevant to formulate and propose non-preferential decisions to stakeholders in relation to the territorial and socio-environmental concerns that accompany market gardening dynamics and other agropastoral practices in rural areas.