A. By tradition, land in Luapula Province is not owned by individuals but, as in many other parts of Africa, is allocated by the headman or headwoman of a village to people of either sex according to need. Since land is generally prepared by hand, a single family group cannot take on a very large area, so land has not been a limiting resource over large parts of the province. However, that situation has already changed near the main towns, and there has long been a scarcity of land for cultivation in the river valley. In both these areas, registered ownership patterns are becoming prevalent.
B. Most of the traditional cropping in Luapula Province is based on citemene, a system whereby crops are grown on the ashes of tree branches. As a rule, entire trees are pollarded (pollarding: removing the tops of tree branches) rather than felled, so that they can regenerate. Branches are cut over an area of land of varying size early in the dry season and then stacked to dry out. The wood is fired before the onset of the rains, and in the first year, the area is planted with the African cereal called finger millet. The grain of this crop is used to brew local drinks such as cipumu, which contributes several vitamins of the B complex to people's diets. Cipumu is also used in cementing reciprocal working relationships (Pottier 1985).
C. During the second year, and possibly for a few years more, the area is planted with various combinations of annuals such as maize, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, groundnuts, beans, and various leafy vegetables, grown with a certain amount of rotation. The diverse sequence ends with the vegetable cassava, which is often planted next to the last but one crop before this is harvested.
D. Richards (1969) observed that the practice of citemene entails a definite division of labour; men and women perform different tasks. The men stake out plots in an unobtrusive manner, since it is considered provocative towards one's neighbours to mark boundaries in an explicit way. The dangerous work of felling branches is also the men's province. Branches are then stacked by women and fired by men. Women and men cooperate in the planting work, but the harvesting is always done by women.
E. At the beginning of the citemene cycle, little weeding is necessary, since the firing of the branches effectively destroys weeds, but as the cycle progresses, weeds increase, and nutrients eventually become depleted to a point where further effort with annual crops is not worthwhile. At this point, cassava is planted, since it can produce a crop on soil that is almost exhausted. Thereafter, the plot is abandoned, and a new area is pollarded for the next cycle.
F. When forest is not available, a situation which is increasingly the case nowadays, a series of ridges is built, in which combinations of maize, beans, groundnuts and sweet potatoes are then planted, usually followed by cassava. These plots are normally tended by women, and provide subsistence.
G. Where their roots have year-round access to water, mango, guava and oil-palm trees are often grown around houses, forming a traditional agro-forestry system, and some of the fruit from these is sold by the roadside or in local markets. In addition, local varieties of rice are sometimes planted in waterlogged ground during the rainy season.
H. Fishing has always been a far more remunerative activity in Luapula than crop husbandry. It provides a much needed protein supplement to the diet, as well as being the one substantial source of cash. Much fish is dried for sale to areas away from the main waterways. The Mweru and Bangweulu Lake Basins are the main areas of year-round fishing, but the Luapula River is also exploited during the latter part of the dry season. Several previously abundant and desirable species have all but disappeared from Lake Mweru, apparently due to overfishing (Huckaby 1979).
I. Regarding animal husbandry, only small numbers of cattle or oxen are kept in the province owing to the prevalence of the tsetse fly. The resulting absence of animal power for pulling machinery greatly limits people's ability to plough and cultivate land: a married couple can rarely manage to prepare an area of more than half a hectare by hand-hoeing. However, most people keep freely roaming chickens and goats. These act as a reserve for bartering, but may also be occasionally slaughtered for ceremonies, or for entertaining important visitors. These animals are not a standard part of most people's diet.
J. Until recently, citemene has been an ingenious system for providing seasonal, high-quality cereals and vegetables in regions of acidic, heavily leached soils. Nutritionally, the most serious deficiency has been that of protein. However, this could be alleviated when fish were available, provided that cultivators lived near the valley or could find a source of dried fish. The citemene/fishing system was well adapted to the ecology of the woodland regions and sustainable for long periods, but only as long as human population densities stayed at low levels.
K. Although population densities are still much lower today than in many other parts of the world, neither the fisheries nor the woodlands of Luapula are capable, with unmodified traditional practices, of supporting the expanding population in a sustainable manner. For instance, even in a normal season, diets suffer from a lack of energy, protein, vitamins, and minerals. It will therefore be necessary in the future to intensify and diversify productive systems.