Scarcity and surfeit : the ecology of Africa's conflicts

70 Scarcity and Surfeit

the political economy of land was a significant factor contributing to the civil
war and genocide in the 1990s. The government, unable to address the land
issue without incurring a loss of patronage, attempted to use land to maintain
control of the state and thereby dominate the institutions and other decision-
making structures to allocate scarce land. Meanwhile, elite groups focused
on accumulating wealth at the expense of the rural poor. By controlling the
state they dominated key decision and rule-making processes to allocate land
and resources.
As observed earlier, land scarcity is prevalent for both the Hutu and ntsi
in Rwanda. Resource scarcity is not divided along ethnic lines. Indeed, the
great majority of both Tutsi and Hutu did not benefit from the 1959 social rev-
olution. The situation for the majority of the rural poor did not change.
Instead, the revolution worsened poverty and inequality and concentrated
wealth in the hands of a ruling elite. However, grievances of the poor rural
Hutu failed to materialise into protest against the control of the state by a
small ruling elite. The government became increasingly insecure as food inse-
curity grew in rural areas. The government was deeply concerned that grow-
ing food insecurity threatened the legitimacy of their rule and state control.
Ethnic differences were used to polarise Hutu and mtsi and to shift respon-
sibility for social injustice onto the Tutsi, regardless of class.

Land Scarcity and Adaptation

Olson64 identifies four main strategies to mitigate land scarcities in Rwanda.
One response to land scarcity is agricultural intensification. Different meth-
ods used by farmers included reducing fallow periods, continuous cropping,
adopting labour intensive techniques, investing in land capital and switching
to higher yielding crops. Intensification of agricultural methods predates
independence in Rwanda, when land was distributed in favour of groups
who grazed livestock, mainly mtsi. Hence, Hutu farmers intensified agricul-
tural practices in the western highlands where population densities were high
and land was scarce
A second response is to generate income off the land, either through trade
and exchange, or by working as agricultural labourers on nearby farms.
Opportunities off the land, however, are few. A third strategy is migration to
other rural and urban areas. The fourth strategy identified by Olson is fami-
ly planning, which includes delaying marriage and limiting the number of
births within marriage.
The former government of Rwanda, in cooperation with non-governmental
organisations and the private sector, pursued a number of other strategies to
mitigate the impact of land scarcity. Overall, government investments focused
on the agricultural sector. Agricultural policy was based on intensive farming,
protection against soil erosion, and the use of selected seeds, fertilizers and