Northern Swordsman
Tawxiid Alle lahaw, Talo na Alle saaro.
Geeljire era is over. Now it’s the age of agriculture, if we want to boost our numbers and economy agriculture is the only way.
Agriculture land by country, Africa
- Thread starter 𐒋𐒖𐒆𐒔𐒖𐒕𐒈
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Herding aka ranching will be the majority, while agriculture will play a smaller role but a very significant one. Regenerative grazing and rotational grazing techniques will increase productivity and sustainability.
Even in the USA, a major agricultural powerhouse, most land is used for grazing rather than growing crops. 66% of U.S. agricultural land is used for grazing livestock, while only 25% of U.S. farmland is used for growing crops because crops require fertile, arable land with irrigation.
Like in America, Somalia’s natural landscape is ideal for this kind of livestock-based economy. Most land is not arable, but it is suitable for grazing.
Livestock is an Economic Engine Beyond Just Food. Animal products are not only food sources but also industrial resources (leather, textiles, plastics, medicines, biodiesel, nitrogen, hides, wool, fertilizers, etc.), making it a multi-purpose economic activity unlike farming, which primarily focuses on food alone.
For example the U.S. meat industry alone is worth over $200 billion annually (beef, poultry, pork). The dairy industry generates $50 billion+ per year in milk, cheese, and butter.
If you add the industrial component of this Leather, gelatin, animal fats, and pharmaceuticals (e.g., insulin from pigs) add even more economic value. Probably triple this
Whilst the corn industry alone is worth over $80 billion, primarily due to ethanol fuel production and animal feed. Whilst Soybeans generate about $60 billion annually, used in oil, animal feed, and processed foods.
Somalia’s Future is in a Hybrid System. Rather than abandoning pastoralism, Somalia is moving toward controlled grazing systems and ranching , a shift that increases productivity while preserving the traditional strength of livestock-based economies.
it’s about combining modern ranching systems with strategic farming, ensuring food security, economic stability, and sustainable land use.
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Some more examples. The hills and countrysides of Borama/Awdal , Northern Somalia's interior
Next to streams/lakes
Rain Fall in Borama
Hirshabelle, Jowhar, Southern Somalia. Entire town surounding the extensive farmland
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Beledweyne, Southern Somalia the town another town further down , also surrounded by farmland and extensive greenery.
This is a town in the central part of Somalia's interior, most of the inhabitants are Hawiye clans like Hawadle and Gaal Jecel clans. The rest are clans like Jejele etc
This is a town in the central part of Somalia's interior, most of the inhabitants are Hawiye clans like Hawadle and Gaal Jecel clans. The rest are clans like Jejele etc
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Those types of satellite maps actually misrepresents large parts of Somalia and can be misleading as it does not differentiate between vegetation types, density, or seasonal variations. They are even worse then those maps who claim it's desert or slap this semi-arid nonsense on it.
Large parts of the country is indeed covered by green vegetation counted that it's not damaged by overgrazing bad land management which shows in some areas.
This map reflects a more accurate and better representative reality.
Only 12% of the land is truly barren(Bare areas), while the majority is covered by natural vegetation (grassland, woodlands, forests, farmland) 87.7%
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This map also reflects what i said before , the purple dots scattered across show rainfed farmland that's concentrated in the north-west from Borama to Hargeisa and the nearby regions.
South-central has irrigated farming(due to the rivers) the red coloured areas show this and it's pretty much splattered with purple coloured dots that show rainfed farmland that extend up to Mudug.
Lower Juba and Lower Shabelle
It shows what i said in another post that the most dense farming communities are in historical NorthWest and South Central part of Somalia. The third being in the Harar uplands/erer zone, shabelle zones (upper part of the river), nogob zone in the elavated hills etc in Ogaden,
The only problematic part is that these maps doesn't show the small scale farms and the large date palm plantations in Bari
Another map , again shows that Somalia is mostly covered with greenery like i said. Contrary to what @The Somali Caesar said
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While this is true but outside of a few certain dense areas you mentioned. without modern technology most of these areas can't sustain agriculture. You see how quickly stuff can die in somalia when there's not enough rain in somalia all of the shrubs basically die.
Most of thr middle east with a similar climate to somalia relies either on rivers. Or mountain based agriculture like In yemen.
Most land is marginal meaning that it's land although covered with vegetation, grass, trees etc it is suitable for grazing livestock and livestock can feed and roam on it. I would estimate that only like 10-20% in Somalia is suitable for large scale farming and around 5% of is currently farmed. It's inline with the global trend of 10-15% land that is arable.
Let me put this in perspective for you: So you can see how Somalia stacks up.
''Forests & Other'' in the Somali case it's mostly the baren/desert part that's only 12%.
Somalia has over 8.9Million hectares of arable land. So it's a lot. What makes it more is that a big chunk of it is highly productive
A lot of currently non-arable areas could sustain more farming and baren areas could hold more grazing ground but it's because its becoming increasingly more damaged that the vegetation shrinks or disappears not because of lack rainfall but because of over-grazing, soil depletion from intensive over-use and bad land management.
Somalia has many major advantages over Middle-East and Yemen and is quite unlike it:
Somalia Has More Sustainable Water Sources:
- Rivers & Groundwater: The Jubba & Shabelle Rivers provide reliable water for irrigation, unlike many parts of the Middle East that rely purely on oases or underground aquifers.
- Seasonal Rains & Monsoon Influence: Somalia gets two rainy seasons (Gu & Deyr), meaning that even less watered areas can support pasture and dryland farming. The Middle East lacks these dual seasonal rains.
- Groundwater Reserves: Somalia has extensive underground water reservoirs that historically sustained communities even in dry years.
Shrubs and Grasslands recover faster than the Middle East's Desert
- Unlike the Middle East, most of Somalia isn’t a true desert. When rains return, grass and vegetation regrow rapidly, making it ideal for grazing.
- Degradation is mostly caused by overgrazing and land mismanagement, not just lack of rain. With proper grazing rotation and reforestation efforts, Somalia’s land can support both livestock and agriculture.
Agriculture Exists Even Without Modern Technology
- Terrace Farming in the North: Some areas in Somaliland and Puntland have used traditional water-harvesting techniques similar to Yemen’s mountain agriculture.
- Flood-Based Farming in the South: Farmers along the Jubba and Shabelle Rivers have historically relied on seasonal floods to deposit rich soil, just like the Nile in Egypt.
- Dryland Farming: Sorghum, millet, and drought-resistant crops have thrived in Somalia for centuries without advanced irrigation.
The advantage Somali has over Yemen is that the riverrine regions can support more intensive agriculture and feed the general country and leave room for surplus export,
Somalia has more arable land than Yemen. Jubba & Shabelle Valleys , These fertile regions have historically supported large-scale farming, unlike Yemen, where agriculture is mostly confined to mountainous terraces.
Somalia is more flat therefore has more cultivable land. While Yemen has steep terrain that limits large-scale farming, Somalia’s river valleys allow for mechanized agriculture and larger farms.
Somalia’s river regions and irrigated tributary uplands historically produced enough surplus food to supply local populations and export to Arabia, earning the name the “Grain Coast.”
Yemen mostly produces food for local consumption and struggles with food security.
Somalia still has vast areas along the river valleys that can be developed for farming.
Yemen’s farming is limited by rugged mountains and declining water sources.
Also i would also point out Yemen’s is going through a water crisis. Yemen is running out of groundwater, while Somalia still has untapped reserves for irrigation expansion.
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Is it possible that a lot of the productivity of thr shabelle rivers is only recent? I mean we know how that malaria prevented any large scale farming and kept pouplation densities low.
The reason i ask this is that we dont really seem to see any large scale urbanism in the shabelle areas. I mean if this region was producing such a large surplus that it could export it to arabia. Then why wasn't there any large city on the scale of what we found in arabia. Hence my hypothesis that farming increased massively first with thr influx of bantu people who were more resistant to malaria. Then it expanded again with late 19th century advances in medcine so that malaria was easier to deal with
North West-Harar Uplands the tributaries of Upper Shabelle river and Middle/Lower Shabelle in Somalia was producing so much food both during the middle ages and early modern period, to support domestic growing populations and export to sustain Arabia.
This is before the introduction of Bantu slaves and Bantus don't exist in Galbeed in the upper part of the river.
From a local Somali Arabic document about pre-19th century period Cassaneli qoutes it.
Portuguese account from the 1500s that mentions grain export from Mogadishu indicating surplus.
So the Shabelle river was highly productive in the past not only in recent times. Literally spent time quoting Medieval Arabic documents detailing the large agricultural production in the thread i shared before: They even compared Shabelle river's productivity to Egypt's Nile river and called ''Mogadishu nile"
The flood plains, soil composition and lack of stone quarries prevented stone building towns in the Shabelle river regions that you see on the coast (with the exception of Luuq, Harar or Bardhere located near hilly/Buur regions and other older/abandoned commercial settlements located in intersections of caravan trade routes in the wider Ogaden and Northern regions) , but you had large agricultural markets/centers/towns like AwDhegle, Afgoye, Qalafo and others and dense clusters of villages in the many that exceeded the populations in all urban centers put together.
You saw the quotes i shared by Ibn Said and Al-Idrisi mentioning the dense populated Hawiye villages along the banks of the river in the 12th century in connection to the Urban coastal cities like Merca/Mogadishu.
They mostly functioned as densely populated agrarian centers feeding Somalia’s urban commercial hubs rather than forming stone-based cities themselves.
Somalia had 5x the population of Arabia. And also when Somalia's commercial urban centers declined due to European Piracy and Oromo Invasion during the 1600-1700s disrupting trade and rural production so to did Arab coastal towns suffer from the same maritime disruption.
Aden went from 86.000 in the middle ages to barely over 100 people in the early 19th century. So it went through the same revival growth.
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