Agriculture in Chad
Preparation of a field begins with cutting heavy bush and unwanted low trees or branches that are then laid on the ground.
Collectively owned lands are parceled out during the dry season, and the fields are burned just before the onset of the first rains, usually around March.
Farmers work most intensively during the rains between May and October, planting, weeding and protecting the crops from birds and animals.
Farmers harvest crops of rice and berebere, the hardiest of Chad's varieties of millet, grown along receding water courses, as late as February.
The western area of the zone is dominated by the Chari and Logone rivers, which flow north from their sources in southern Chad and neighboring countries.
Flood recession cropping is practiced along the edges of the riverbeds and lakeshore, areas that have held the most promise for irrigation in the zone.
Farmers take every advantage of seasonal flooding to grow recession crops before the waters dry away, a practice particularly popular around Lake Fitri.
In the polders of Lake Chad, farmers grow a wide range of crops; two harvests per year for corn, sorghum, and legumes are possible from February or March to September.
[3] Chad's subsistence farmers practice traditional slash-and-burn agriculture in tandem with crop rotation, which is typical throughout much of Africa.
Other secondary crops include peanuts, sesame, legumes, and tubers, as well as a variety of garden vegetables.
Under the management of parastatal or government employees, farmers enter into contractual arrangements, including paying fees, for the use of state lands and the benefits of improved farming methods.
Even so, despite pockets of malnutrition remaining in areas where rains failed or locusts damaged local crops, the overall picture for Chad's food production was good in the 1985-87 period.
The rebound of food production in this period was the result of good rains, the return of political stability, and the absence of major conflict in the Sahelian and East Sudanian savannas.
Total cereal production rose thereafter to the 700,000-ton level, well above the estimated 615,000 tons of grains needed for food sufficiency.
[3] Yet the overall food sufficiency registered by Chad in these years served to underscore the problem of regional imbalances in cereal production.
It was estimated that the East Sudanian savannas produced between 53 and 77% of Chad's total cereal production from 1976 to 1985, with the average falling in the 60- to 70-% range.
But because the populations of the two regions were approximately equal, the lack of a good transport system and marketing mechanisms to allow the rapid transfer of the southern surplus to the northern zones was a constant problem.
Taking an average for all lands devoted to grain production during the years from 1981 to 1985, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), sorghum and millet cultivation accounted for 85% of the total area.
By World War II, the French imposed cultivation in the areas of southern Chad near Laï and Kélo, along the Logone River.
Local farmers sold surplus peanuts through traditional channels, rather than to the state monopoly set up in 1965, the National Trading Company of Chad (Société Nationale de Commercialisation du Tchad—SONACOT).
Unlike Cotontchad, SONACOT was never given the means to compel farmers to sell their crops, and it did not have the resources to compete with prices offered by traditional traders.
Grown only in the East Sudanian savannas, tubers were once neglected, although such cultivation is widespread in other parts of subtropical West Africa.
The reason for this important shift in eating habits among people of the East Sudanian savannas was the hedge these crops provided against famine in years when drought reduced millet and sorghum production.
The real value of Chad's cattle herds was in the export by traditional traders to markets in Cameroon and Nigeria.
Smaller numbers of cattle were found in the East Sudanian savannas, along with about 100,000 buffaloes used in plowing cotton fields.
[3] The government and international donor community had contemplated considerable improvements for Chad's livestock management, but these plans were undermined by the Chadian Civil War, political instability, and an inadequate infrastructure.
The most successful programs have been animal vaccination campaigns, such as an emergency project carried out in 1983 to halt the spread of rinderpest.
The campaign reached some 4.7 million head of cattle across the nation and demonstrated the capabilities of Chad's animal health service when given external support.
Although highly subsidized, this venture also was unsuccessful and demonstrated the resilience of the traditional private network for marketing produce.
Despite these institutional difficulties, the international community continued to support efforts to expand animal health services to Chad's herders.
