In the past ten years many African countries have experienced a rapid growth in rural and urban populations although Africa remains the world's least urbanised continent, with only 35 per cent living in urban areas as compared with a global average of 45 per cent. During the last thirty years, the urban population in Africa increased at an annual rate of 4.8 per cent due to rural-urban migration and lower mortality rates, and correspondingly during the ten-year period from 1976, this growth rate in Lesotho has averaged 4.9 per cent (Government of Lesotho 1992; United Nations Economic Commission for Africa 1996). Rising populations in rural areas have resulted in land shortages, forcing people to move into the urban areas. Some assume that life in the peri-urban and urban areas has advantages, but once they move into these areas, they find that their expectations are not met and that life is really very difficult.
The lack of employment opportunities in the public and private sectors lead people to work in the informal sector and urban agriculture. Gardens are not a recent phenomenon in Lesotho and can be traced back to the nineteenth century. However, there has been an increasing number of gardens in Maseru, the capital city, and in other peri-urban and urban areas.
SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN LESOTHO
From the days of Moshoeshoe I to the present, the settlement pattern of Lesotho has changed from a traditional structure, characterised by concentrated village settlements, to a more complex pattern in recent years. Cultivation and grazing areas were usually located at a distance from the village. Expansion has proceeded in stages. In the first stage, the mountain lands were used mainly for grazing livestock with a few isolated herdsmen's huts. The rest of the population was scattered in lowland villages. In the second stage, the huts gave way to small settlements, which eventually became villages. The best grazing land in the villages was put under the plough. Instead of land supporting a small group of people, it was forced to supporta growing number of agriculturists, leading to soil erosion and reduced soil fertility. Often close to the huts, a garden was cultivated with a limited variety of vegetables for consumption.
