Somalis are beggars with rich fertile land

[Agent 47]

This is a total myth. There is not enough water in Lower Shabelle to irrigate that much farmland. And there is not enough farmland in Lower Shabelle even if the water was available. Even if you made full use of the Shabelle and Juba and irrigated sorghum yielding 8 tons per hectare you would not be able to attain self sufficiency in grains let alone vegetables and proteins. At Some point in the 1970s and 1980s It was possible for Somalia to achieve food self sufficiency, but that ship 25 years ago with our exponential population growth.

Bosaso markets get their supplies from shsbelle river towns. And when Galmudug did a blockade on puntland (after puntland tried some dumb blockade on Galmudug) all the markets in puntland ran out of

That’s nothing to laugh about.

Those people are maskiin families who come to Xamaar for IDP camps and access to the central government. Thier State is still in infancy marred incompetent leaders.

where exactly did I laugh?

And I know they’re miskiin that is why I told my mom to give them money.

 

[Descendent-Of-Fiqi]

The maths works out and we should be able to cover 20% of our nutritional needs (100% of our rice consumption - 750 thousand tons).

However...

We have an higher than average rice consumption per capita and rice isn't the most water efficient plant regardless of how high yielding it is.

Don't have much data on the rice strain you're referring to but rice regardless of type, is a water intensive plant that usually requires more than 10,000 m^3 of water per hectare.

Actually, it's probably a lot more as the usual way it's cultivated; flooded paddies, will evaporate most the water and requires constant topping up.

For the amount of investment it will require in irrigation (forget rain fed rice in Somalia) we probably should use our limited water resources on plants like potatoes or sugarcane for bio fuels which would produce a lot more mass per litre of water.

Also staple foods have extremely low margins due to the generous international food aid you'll have to compete with.

So even if you cover 20% of our needs; you'll still need to figure out how to use the remaining 25% water to produce the other 80% of our nutritional consumption.

We're not in a state run economy so there will be a coordination problem which will lead to most arable land owners going for the most profitable cash crop option unless there are incentives to grow rice (subsidies which we can't afford ).

Alternative solution would be to gradually impose increasing import tariffs (& export limitations...) for stuff we think we ought to grow ourselves but that would just lead to corruption unless backed with a strategy to help farmers increase yields and long term guarantees for domestic market protections.

However if we did that then the World Bank & IMF would kill any chance we have at integrating with the wider global economy.

Their are strains of rice that can use salt water or slightly salty water so this may be a possible solution. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/rice-seawater-chinese-scientists-food-200-million-a8017971.html

 

[xisaabiye]

@merka @waraabe @Thegoodshepherd @jugjugwacwac @oday1kenobi @xisaabiye @Jjero
Many people don`t know this but the area between hargeisa and borama recieves the joint highest rainfall in somali inhabited areas of the horn . Heck it gets the same rainfall as the jubas and shabelle areas in south as shown below.

However despite this SL still mostly relies on ethiopia for food even though a substantial amount of it can be grown within its borders. This area has a lot of potential thats not being utilized.

Below is a satellite image of how farming looks near wajaale

View attachment 32753

How come I don't get notified when someone @ me lol

Anyway take a look at this. It's a group of people from that region that owned small pieces of farm land.

Somaliland Farmer Organization Makes USD 3,240,000 through Commercial Agriculture

At the inception of the programme, the group only had ¼ of a hectare under cultivation, 2 years later they proudly farm 3 hectares. Each household in the group has 2 hectares of land under cultivation meaning that the total land under production is a whopping 180 hectares! The group produces 540,000 kilograms of onion during the peak season and 32,400 kilograms during off peak. The produce from tomato is 630,000 kilograms during peak and 45,000 kilograms during off peak season while 700 pieces of water melon are produced during peak season and 200 pieces produced during off peak. Each water melon weighs an average 2 kilograms adding up to 1,260,000 kilograms during peak season and 360,000 kilograms produced off peak season.

https://www.farmconcern.org/somalil...3,240,000-through-commercial-agriculture.html

We need more investors to put money into agriculture, even as a group of companies. Whoever taps into commercial farming will not only change the lives of our people, but will make serious dividends while doing the deed.