Forty years after independence, the results of rural and agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa are hardly positive. The gap in terms of development between this region and the rest of the world seems to widen every year. Particularly high population growth in the region is often given as an explanation for why the region is lagging so far behind. Yet the effect of this factor on agricultural development does not go very far in providing a unanimously shared view on the reasons for this phenomenon. Some feel that high population growth has led to the deterioration of resources and thus imperiled the sustainability of agriculture. This viewpoint runs counter to the one that holds that population density is a necessary precondition, or may even be sufficient, to lead to agricultural intensification and the improved management of natural resources. To resolve this apparent contradiction, we must examine agricultural dynamics in all their diversity.