Mauritania, Agriculture (contd-1)

Crops

Millet and Sorghum were Mauritanian's principal crops, followed b rice and corn. Before 1980s, millet and Sorghum accounted for 70-80 p.c. or more of total of total grain production. Rice production in the 1970s averaged 5-10 p.c. , and

and corn made up 10-25 p.c. In the 1980s,
rice production grew in importance, as national
planning empasized irrigated agriculture (which favoured rice) and a change in dietary habits. A few other crops were cultivated. Around 10,000 to 15,000 tons of dates were produced annually in the country's oeses, mostly for local
consumption. During the 1960s, the 1960s,
the traditional production of gum arabic rose to
some 5,000 tons a year. By the 1980s, however, production combined with drought to destroy virtually all of Mauritania's gum-producing
acacia trees.
By 1986 farmers working irrigated lands produced about 35 p.c. of of the country's grain crops.On a potentially irrigable area estimaated
at 135,000 hectares, only some 13,700 hectares were in production in 1985-86.The system of land tenure was in trasition in the 1980s . Factors contributing to this transition included government abolition of centuries-old slavery practices involving tribal and ethnic relations between various herding and sedimentary communities, government development policies,
particularly with regard to land reform and large scale
irrigation schemes, and tremendous shifts in land
settlement and herding patterns because of drought.