Agriculture land by country, Africa

[Idilinaa]

Yes, nomadic clans did engage in farming to some extent, but most of the agricultural work was historically carried out by the Raxanweyn and minorities . It wasn’t until the late 19th and 20th centuries that we saw a significant shift in this dynamic. We could probably say that a significant portion of this nomad-to-farmer shift happenend during colonization as a direct response of the abolishment of slaveryand the hit it gave the Somali food supply.

Some farms and plantations were owned by pastrolist Somali individuals or entire clans, who made agreements with minority groups in exchange for protection.

Many of the pastrolist "agricultural" clans with a history of farming were likely more akin to overseers, tasked with managing and controlling the agricultural production carried out by these marginalized groups.

The truth is, slavery in Somali history is something we are, rightfully, intuitively ashamed of. However, refusing to acknowledge that it played a role in our past is simply dishonest.

We haven’t even touched on the fact that the Raxanweyn themselves could arguably only be considered fully emancipated post-1990s, when nomadic clans realized they were numerous and strong enough to resist them. The fact is because most of them were farmers, and nomads associated farming with weaker minorities, it then rubbed off on the raxanweyn.

The Raxanweyn were probably the only Somali clan to have fully committed to farming at all levels of society, from top to bottom, but even they engaged in the enslavement of bantus to the same or greater extend as pastrolist clans.

They are not nomadic clans, they lived in settled villages. It's also not true what you are saying you literally have historical documentation that Hawiye communities farmed alongide the Shabelle river as early as the 12th century

This can be seen in historical documentation and in their tradition for several centuries

"Hawiye of the central region have had a long history of agricultural practices. Oral traditions of those clans show that their settlement and subsequent farming practices have been going on for several centuries""

Some references to other Hawiye clans besides Abgal Wadaan or Hinitire. This is from the mid-1800s.

Bimaal communities also farmed for generations after moving into the area before the 19th century and long before they even imported slaves.

''The arable portion of the land was held by the lineage until individuals under took to clear and plant it. Individual occupation of farms became common, the Bimaal say six to eight generations ago"

Any clan that moved in or was settled in fertile patches of land engaged in farming and the same goes Darood who settled in Wamo/Juba areas in the 19th century, they immediately picked up farming because the land was arable.

The Raxanweyn engaged in pastoralism and combined it with farming for many centuries as well like Hawiye but they are in reality just a confederation of the same Somali clans they neighbor. Not distinct from them. Just so you know.

And Raxanweyn and Tunni were the largest slave owners and plantation owners, it wasn't just Hawiye or Bimaal or Darood or Reer Xamar.

Whether clans engaged in farming or not depended on the land they inhabited, Raxanweyn was mostly just concentrated betweeen the two rivers so most of the land was arable and there was enough water, whereas other clans like Hawiye & Bimaal for example was scatterred into both across the arable shabelle river zones and outside of it in the central & lower coastal plains that wasn't arable and was more suitble for grazing primarily livestock. You can see it described in the text above about Bimaal distribution that makes distinction between arable and non-arable portion of land.

This dispersal was intentional as to not create resource depletion in a single area, so they lived in both the arable areas and the non-arable areas.

Then you also had the Harar Uplands that was irrigated by the tributaries of upper shabelle river and the higher elevation made it better watered, so the Darood Kombe clans like Geri, Abaskul, Usbahyan and Bartiree were largely just sedentary agro-pastoralists/farmers settled into villages for many generations and centuries prior because most of the land was arable and they did not use Bantus or slaves.

As Richard Burton noted when he visited the area:

The last part of what i said is important to point out because in North West(Awdal-Waqooyi-Galbeed) and the Harar Uplands there is no Bantu's and neither do they use slaves for large scale cash crop plantation either and frankly it was the same in the South Central of Somalia prior to the 19th century.

Before the 19th century there is zero documentation of slave plantations in Southern Somalia and yet you had farming communities throughout the medieval period.

The legacy of Ethiopian slavery in Mogadishu is reflected on (Xabash) being synonymous with a slave and it's persistence in the southern dialects both on the benadiri coast and in the interriverine interior. Which still continue to call slaves Xabash.

Somali dictionary synonyms:

I also remember reading that Portuguese mentioned Ethiopian slave in Mogadishu, but i can't really find where i read it.
So if anyone could help me out and find it, it will be good.

It will offer strong proof against the false notion that Southern Somalia had Bantu plantation slaves during the medieval period.

 

[Idilinaa]

After the conquest of Jubaland, the conquerers started to farm the territory using their newly acquired slaves in addition to rearing livestock. Janay Abdalle in Lower Jubba was a hub for agriculture then producing grain that supplied Kismayo and was exported.

The ogaden/darood & various other clans who re-conquered Juba to drive out the the Oromo invaders at the behest of Bardheere Sultans and the native Somali clans in the area or emigrated to portions of un-inhabited arable lands, they themselves had to settle down and establish the areas first , plant, irrigate it, clear the land and measure the land and its usage capacity etc and farm the land themselves over the course of many years before they even imported slave labour for large scale cash crop production and they had to build up the money and purchasing power to even aquire them.

They also had to open up and create markets, outlets and towns for exports and trade as well. So it did not begin with aquisition of slaves for them either

I briefly go into it in another thread and how it went a few years first between establishing land, then establishing interior markets and then a coastal outlet and then commercial relations with other neighboring lands abroad. It was very systematic.

From the same text i shared earlier in another thread about Hawiye farmers in the inlands, It also mentions Kismaayo the southern coastal city which did not exist until 1869 when Somali clans in Upper Jubba valley opened it up for trade and later they invited Majerteen/Harti traders to help expand the trade:

''Neverthelesss Kismayu is the natural outlet of the vast basin of the Juba, which reaches the sea about 12 miles to the north-east. In 1869 this town did not yet exist, but in that year some Somali emigrants from the Upper Jubba Valley, and especially from the neighbourhood of Bardera or Bal Tir, the chief market of the interior, established themselves at this favourable point of the coast, and opened direct commercial relations with Zanzibar.

Later some members of Mijuirtin tribe, the most energetic traders on the whole seaboard also settled in the same place, the population of which had already risen to eight thousand six hundred in the year 1873."

Some pictures of Kismaayo during the late 1800- early 1900s

 

[Shimbiris]

They are not nomadic clans, they lived in settled villages. It's also not true what you are saying you literally have historical documentation that Hawiye communities farmed alongide the Shabelle river as early as the 12th century
View attachment 356967



This can be seen in historical documentation and in their tradition for several centuries

"Hawiye of the central region have had a long history of agricultural practices. Oral traditions of those clans show that their settlement and subsequent farming practices have been going on for several centuries""
View attachment 356966

Some references to other Hawiye clans besides Abgal Wadaan or Hinitire. This is from the mid-1800s.
View attachment 356968

Bimaal communities also farmed for generations after moving into the area before the 19th century and long before they even imported slaves.

''The arable portion of the land was held by the lineage until individuals under took to clear and plant it. Individual occupation of farms became common, the Bimaal say six to eight generations ago"
View attachment 356965


Any clan that moved in or was settled in fertile patches of land engaged in farming and the same goes Darood who settled in Wamo/Juba areas in the 19th century, they immediately picked up farming because the land was arable.

The Raxanweyn engaged in pastoralism and combined it with farming for many centuries as well like Hawiye but they are in reality just a confederation of the same Somali clans they neighbor. Not distinct from them. Just so you know.

And Raxanweyn and Tunni were the largest slave owners and plantation owners, it wasn't just Hawiye or Bimaal or Darood or Reer Xamar.

Whether clans engaged in farming or not depended on the land they inhabited, Raxanweyn was mostly just concentrated betweeen the two rivers so most of the land was arable and there was enough water, whereas other clans like Hawiye & Bimaal for example was scatterred into both across the arable shabelle river zones and outside of it in the central & lower coastal plains that wasn't arable and was more suitble for grazing primarily livestock. You can see it described in the text above about Bimaal distribution that makes distinction between arable and non-arable portion of land.

This dispersal was intentional as to not create resource depletion in a single area, so they lived in both the arable areas and the non-arable areas.

Then you also had the Harar Uplands that was irrigated by the tributaries of upper shabelle river and the higher elevation made it better watered, so the Darood Kombe clans like Geri, Abaskul, Usbahyan and Bartiree were largely just sedentary agro-pastoralists/farmers settled into villages for many generations and centuries prior because most of the land was arable and they did not use Bantus or slaves.

As Richard Burton noted when he visited the area:

View attachment 356970
View attachment 356972

The last part of what i said is important to point out because in North West(Awdal-Waqooyi-Galbeed) and the Harar Uplands there is no Bantu's and neither do they use slaves for large scale cash crop plantation either and frankly it was the same in the South Central of Somalia prior to the 19th century.

Before the 19th century there is zero documentation of slave plantations in Southern Somalia and yet you had farming communities throughout the medieval period.

One thing to keep in mind as well is that staple crops southern Somalis grew, if I'm not mistaken, were basically from deeper into the Horn and part of an agricultural complex that developed in central and southern Ethiopia:

The durra complex in the central highlands of Ethiopia - Economic Botany

The Eastern Galla of Ethiopia have developed advanced agricultural techniques of rotation, terracing and irrigation with Sorghum vulgare (durra) as the major field crop. Crops of secondary importance in the durra complex are corn (Zea mays’), barley, peanuts, sesame, fieldpeas, beans, and fenugreek.

link.springer.com

No Bantus were teaching them how to grow crops from the highlands of Ethiopia.

 

[Idilinaa]

One thing to keep in mind as well is that staple crops southern Somalis grew, if I'm not mistaken, were basically from deeper into the Horn and part of an agricultural complex that developed in central and southern Ethiopia:

The durra complex in the central highlands of Ethiopia - Economic Botany

The Eastern Galla of Ethiopia have developed advanced agricultural techniques of rotation, terracing and irrigation with Sorghum vulgare (durra) as the major field crop. Crops of secondary importance in the durra complex are corn (Zea mays’), barley, peanuts, sesame, fieldpeas, beans, and fenugreek.

link.springer.com

No Bantus were teaching them how to grow crops from the highlands of Ethiopia.

The durra complex crops and sorghum are actually adapted to the general lowland climate as well and is drought resistant. So just like Coffee, Sorghum mostly likely originated in Southern Somalia and Galbeed/Harar uplands , Eastern Oromos picked it up from Somalis neighboring them as they migrated/invaded into the area.

Both in the North and South they also used various farming techniques. Rainfed farming was most common in the Northwest (sometimes irrigated by seasonal rivers like Togdheer during the rainy season) and other lands.

Whereas the interriverine and the Harar Uplands combined both irrigated and rain fed farms.

They also used grain storage systems @Abaq mentioned just now about Bakar, to circumvent the eratic rainfall patterns.

Funnily enough the exact same grain storage system is described in Northern Somalia in the 14th century and it was also used by grain traders to stockpile it and preserve it over a long period.

To this last point i want to add a Chinese description of Northern Somalia in the 1300s because it's an early accurate description of a grain storage system that Somalis share with Egyptians and Sudanese. I mentioned without going deep into it to @Midas in his thread: Limitations-Of-Medieval-Somali-Urbanism: My brief take on Grain Storage and Rain water collecting system


Might have formed apart of that agro-pastoral package that @Shimbiris spoke about that came with the migrations of the early cushitic speakers to the Horn.

''The ruler of the country resides on the seacoast..yet produces millet. Tires of stone compromises the dwellings of the people. They dig into the earth more than ten feet, in order to store grain which keeps without rotting for three years.'''

This grain storage system which is called Bakhar is also used by grain traders. There is even a market in Mogadishu named after it in recent times.

Grain Storage Techniques: Evolution and Trends in Developing​

Said Shidaad mentions this as well, comparing it to the ancient egyptian system of grain conservation.

Social and Economic Developments in Pre-Islamic Somalia​

Spoiler: Chinese description of Zeila how they cultivate wheat

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Idilinaa]

Further west, along the fertile Lag Dheera basin in Wajir South, the locals used to grow crops such as sorghum and millet which they would store it in a 'bakaar' (a sack underground, pl us bakaaro, this is where the word Bakaaro Market in Xamar comes from). The 'bakaar' would be dug up in the event of a drought or any other calamity so they could survive till the rains came, sometimes even for 2 to 3 years. They also used to make a form of powdered milk from their milk surplus which would likewise be stored and used during the dry season or droughts, they would just add milk.

All of this stopped in the 90s when aid agencies started bringing relief food, they said why toil when someone will give us free food anyway. Aid needs to be banned.

I fully agree with you. Not just banning of aid they need to also put tariff on certain agricultural products from outside of Somali to protect local markets & industries so that people don't import cheaper substitutes and give premium to native produce particularly certain food crops and seeds adapted to the Somali environments rather than reliance on cash crops and give subsidies to local farmers to make things more affordable.

This is the particular downside of not really having a functioning public sector but only a strong private sector. Because before 1990 like you said Somali government regulated the market and encouraged domestic food crop produce

"As a result , sorghum production increased 87 percent ... As a result in years of adequate rainfall, Somalia was largely self-sufficient in maize and sorghum"

They actually estimated the rural subsistence food sector in 1978 after the Ogaden War and Somalia was virtually self-sufficient.

"Somalia's rural subsistence sector produced sufficient grain and animal products(mostly milk) to sustain the country's growing population, including it's massive refugee population"

It's largely due to the government prioritizing food security and domestic production for local food consumption rather than export/import driven agricultural policy in the immediate sense.

 

[Shimbiris]

Wallahi, @The alchemist and @Idilinaa are two posters where when they drop long posts I bookmark and ready myself for this later:

Too bad they don't always get along, wallahi.

 

[Idilinaa]

Wallahi, @The alchemist and @Idilinaa are two posters where when they drop long posts I bookmark and ready myself for this later:

Too bad they don't always get along, wallahi.

We actually agree on more things than we disagree on. The big lesson is to not personalize disagreements when we do have them , hopefully going forward

 

[The alchemist]

Wallahi, @The alchemist and @Idilinaa are two posters where when they drop long posts I bookmark and ready myself for this later:

Too bad they don't always get along, wallahi.

The only reason Idilinaa argues is because of frustration. It's time for her to get married. Be that man, my friend. Solve all of our problem.

 

[Idilinaa]

The only reason Idilinaa argues is because of frustration. It's time for her to get married. Be that man, my friend. Solve all of our problem.

From your side its obvious that it's more than disagreements about topical discussions and it didn't begin with renewable energy, its apparent from the implicit assumptions you make about me that it is fueled by your past beef/frustrations with Somali women. That's why your trying to pick a fight with me and bring/project gender into it.

At the same time suggesting i should get married to @Shimbiris. If you only knew how ridiculous that is you wouldn't have suggested it. I don't need to say more, since i am pretty sure @Shimbiris is laughing himself silly cos he knows.

 

[The alchemist]

From you side its obvious it's more than disagreements about topical discussions and it didn't begin with renewable energy, its apparent from the implicit assumptions you make about me fueled by your past beef/frustrations with Somali women. That's why your trying to pick a fight with me and bring gender into it.

At the same time suggesting i should get married to @Shimbiris , if you only knew how ridiculous that is you wouldn't have suggested it. I don't need to say more, since i am pretty @Shimbiris is laughing himself silly cos he knows.

Does me mentioning you're a girl hurt you? How old are you? I bet you won't answer that question. I think you're closer to 15 than I am to 35.

Seems like you're already close. @Shimbiris lock in, sxb.

 

[reer]

From you side its obvious it's more than disagreements about topical discussions and it didn't begin with renewable energy, its apparent from the implicit assumptions you make about me that it is fueled by your past beef/frustrations with Somali women. That's why your trying to pick a fight with me and bring/project gender into it.

At the same time suggesting i should get married to @Shimbiris. If you only knew how ridiculous that is you wouldn't have suggested it. I don't need to say more, since i am pretty sure @Shimbiris is laughing himself silly cos he knows.

you are too optimistic about somalia. its a amisom protectorate abaayo.

 

[The alchemist]

I think if you were gonna write a basic history of somalia i would first focus on the last 500 years. My sources at minium would be
1) futuh al habesha
2) the gadbursui chronicles
3) that one majeeerten chronicles idinlaa mentioned
4) the sources sharif aydrus used in his book on somali history
5) books on the darwish
6) geledi chronicles
7) European Explorer accounts
8) the later chronicles from harar

Archaeology provides resources for historical synthesis. Reading the raw research and the writings (in critique based focus), supplements the dimensions and elucidates much of the economic and geographic landscape. This is significant.

When people say we don't have much to go from, that perspective comes from looking in the wrong directions. We know a lot.

 

[Idilinaa]

Does me mentioning you're a girl hurt you? How old are you? I bet you won't answer that question. I think you're closer to 15 than I am to 35.

Seems like you're already close. @Shimbiris lock in, sxb.

Baseless assumptions about who and what i am don't hurt me. It's just funny.

You have like zero information about me, so you are either running off on your own imaginations or trying to bait it out by tossing things out to see if i either deny it or confirm it.

You don't know how old i am, where i live, what gender i am, what clan i am from, yall know nothing, except for the fact i am Somali.

But what i said was true this goes beyond me , you have some weird beef or complex with Somali women, seeing how you took a benign debate about renewable energy transition from oil and turned it into a slew of ad-hominems and mentions about Somali women you have had arguments with in the past

I mean look at what you said from the Dubai oil discussion:

Again, I have seen this kind of behavior in this very topic by another Somali woman and it is a tactic for the disingenuous and immature when they don't get their way in a discussion.

Is she right about Dubai?

How many crimes must the UAE commit against other Muslim states before Somalis (who have options) stop going there? They finance the terrorist RSF in Sudan and help in the looting of their gold, they back Israel and support the ethnic cleansing of Gazans, they supported the overthrow of Gaddafi...

www.somalispot.com

We don't agree on the oil and energy transitions it's not something to lose your mind over and write long lines of dia-tribes.

And Imagine calling me immature , even though i am the one who is trying to keep things impersonal, civil, respectful and de-escalate it to move past it.

 

[The alchemist]

Agriculture doesn't mean farming crops alone, pastoralism is technically agriculture as well. Land dedicated to grazing animals is agricultural land.

Pastoralism is under the broad umbrella of agriculture when it comes to terms of subsistence definition, and it falls within the agricultural sector within the modern state economy bracket, however, agricultural land is considered arable agrarian land specific. That is why they define it by hectares. The shrub-lands that give ample calories for a herd of camels are not factored in.

Transhumance in European countries can be considered within agricultural land, but I don't think the seasonal lands that only turn green once or twice a year in otherwise dry regions are agricultural lands. At least not in the modern economic lens. You can technically make the case that it could be defined as seasonal agricultural land, but to me definitions serve a purpose.

But you're again, pointing to something important. Maybe the perception of pastoral-based land-use should have its own definition instead of being defined by farming-based sedentary land use. This could also expand upon how to improve such productive livestock management and yield. I think the supply chain of livestock sale is inefficient, too informal, and undervalued by Arabs that buy them by the bulk.

 

[The alchemist]

Baseless assumptions about who and what i am don't hurt me. It's just funny.

You have like zero information about me, so you are either running off on your own imaginations or trying to bait it out by tossing things out to see if i either deny it or confirm it. You don't know how old i am, where i live, what gender i am, what clan i am from, yall know nothing, except for the fact i am Somali.

But what i said was true this goes beyond me , you have some weird beef or complex with Somali women, seeing how you took a benign debate about renewable energy transition and turned it into a slew of ad-hominems and mentions about Somali women you have had arguments with in the past

I mean look at this from Dubai oil Discussion:

Is she right about Dubai?

How many crimes must the UAE commit against other Muslim states before Somalis (who have options) stop going there? They finance the terrorist RSF in Sudan and help in the looting of their gold, they back Israel and support the ethnic cleansing of Gazans, they supported the overthrow of Gaddafi...

www.somalispot.com

We don't agree on the oil and energy transitions it's not something to lose your mind over and write long lines of dia-tribes.

And Imagine calling me immature , even though i am the one who is trying to keep things impersonal, civil, respectful and de-escalate it to move past it.

You really were hurt. Damn.

By the way, I was right. A person who refrains from stating their gender or age, the most basic standard descriptors known to humans are not to be trusted, and they have issues.

 

[Idilinaa]

You really were hurt. Damn.

I can't be hurt by baseless assumptions about who/what i am. The one who is hurt is the one who personalizes disagreements and engages in personal attacks/projections.

 

[The Somali Caesar]

I will always regret that our ancestors never migrated south or east. They sat their behind on a desert land.

Bantu get a rare W

 

[Idilinaa]

you are too optimistic about somalia. its a amisom protectorate abaayo.

It's not that i am too optimistic, it's the fact yall have a grudge against not only Somalia and but whole Somali collective. Thats why yall despise me sharing anything constructive or informative.

I identify with and advocate for the collective, it doesn't matter whether they are in Somalia/Somaliland/Puntland/NFD/Ogaden/Djibouti or even in the Diaspora. We are all one big connected family.

Somalia is the most self-reliant, commercially organized and self-sustaining economy in all Africa. That's what it is, if you don't like me sharing that reality then cry yourself to sleep.

 

[Sputnikaa]

Yet despite all of this Africa is a massive food importer where they have the most hungry population on earth

70% of the global untouched virgin farmland is in Africa but a tiny country in cold Europe like Netherlands will export more food than any other nation except America, $153 billion in 2023 and cold freezing Holland region which freezes half the year is biggest milk products and onion exporter to Africa

The continent of shame, Hassan Sheikh doesn't have to beg for aid, he could literally export food and fish and meat and use that to build a strong state, army.

but then I prefer him to be that incompetent and beg for money rather than develop massive revenue sources from agriculture so he doesn't attack Jubbaland again.

 

[Sputnikaa]

I will always regret that our ancestors never migrated south or east. They sat their behind on a desert land.

Bantu get a rare W

Speak for your self, My Ogaden ancestors left Sanaag to conquer lush green Jubbaland, Ogadeniya with 6 rivers and 1/3 of Kenya and the Fertile Kenyan river Tana

why do somalis act like somalis dont have good farm lands? tiny Holland region half the size of Nugaal produces more food that any place on earth except America, never mind rest of Netherlands,

Congo bigger than western Europe could supply food and water to the entire planet and their entire population is at constant war and chaos,

if you give Africans fertile France they would still fail to produce food. when was the last time somalis fished the longest african coast? farmajo sold somali fishing rights to china for $1 million,

the global fish market is $460 Billion, farmajo could have export 1% of that and funded somalia and her army instead of begging for aid lol and wiped out kawarij

face it dude, its culture of the African race,