Abstract
This report is done from the information of the Basic Study for Agricultural Development in the Niger River Bassin done by J ALDA (Japan Agricultural Land Development Agency). J ALDA has studied the factors of the causes, and the actual stage of desertification and the control of it in the basin of Niger River from 1985 to 1990. The main purpose of it is to seek for the possibility of agriculture development in that area. We thought that the desertification control is synonym to keep environment of life. The occupants of that environment are farmers and nomadas, so the point of the desertification control is to find out how to continue modern and traditional farming system and stable grazing. In that area, the desertification doesn’t constantly make progress from the Sahara desert to the south. We can observe the vegetation recover according to the precipitation fluctuation. The intense desertification can be observed near by city side because of the population growing and the culture zones where the precipitation is about 500 mm. JALDA proposed the concepts of desertification control as the result of the study as follows.
(1)Improving the high potential area for the agriculture and social-economic condition.
(2)Land management.
(3)Connecting this high potential area with the development of the rural roads, the waterway and forest (trees and bushes).
(4)Construction of green defense zone at the northern boundary areas of culture to prevent the southward desertification.
(5)Protection forests in the water resource area and the tropica) rainy zone.
The typical topography in that area is a vast combination of the upland plain and alluvial lowland areas. In the vast land, the soil and water condition are different from each points. The vegetation makes typical ecological patterns, and there are many kind of cultivations according to the different nat-ural conditions. Considering the different condition and ecology, we have to prepare many kind of mothod of deserti-fication control, and the possibility in agriculture development and stabilizing vegetation are many also.