In the year 2020, 80 percent of farmers were employed by Chad. This sector was responsible for 52.3% of the overall GDP in 2017. The majority of Chad’s agricultural production is for subsistence, except for cotton, sugar cane, and a small peanut crop.
Crop rotation
East Sudanese savanna farmers start with sorghum or millet. Three-year sorghum and millet with peanuts, beans, or tubers. Farmers rotate fields and fallow after 15 years. Clearing and putting down heavy shrubs and low trees or branches prepares a field. Before the March rains, jointly owned lands are parceled and burned. Farmers sow, weed, and protect crops from May until October. Early September-October sorghum harvests. Harvest is November–December. In February, Chad’s hardest millet, berbere, is harvested.
Crop rotation like the East Sudanian savanna is common in the Sahel, but dryness limits crop variety. In February or March and September, Lake Chad farmers can harvest grain, sorghum, and legumes. Rice ripens in February, wheat in May.
Agricultural data
Chad’s late 1980s agriculture data was primarily broad patterns. Cotton production in the East Sudanian savanna was monitored by the Chadian National Office of Rural Development (ONDR). Officials collected food production statistics irregularly. The mid-1970s–early 1980s civil strife hindered Sahel survey coverage.
International and regional figures disagreed. To estimate arable areas, sources blended fields in production with those lying fallow, making food output difficult to assess. since 1961. From 29,000 square kilometers (11,325 sq. In 1983 and 1984, food production spanned 12,000 and 9,000 square km, respectively. (3,515 sq. mls). In a given year, perhaps a third of Chad’s farmlands were in production, with the remainder fallow.
Millet-sorghum
Sorghum, millet, and berebere fed Chad. After the mid-1950s, these grains were produced on average 15,000 square kilometers, then 10,000 and 7,500 between 1961 and 1986. According to the FAO, 85% of grain-producing land was sorghum and millet from 1981 to 1985. (FAO). 1980–1985 grain production was 80–95% coarse grains.
Wheat
Wheat was Chad’s second-most important grain crop in 1987. Northern Chad’s oases, wadis, and polders grew the crop. The Lake Development Organization (Société pour le Développement du Lac—SODELAC) was founded in 1967 to organize and supply wheat to N’Djamena’s state-owned flour mill, Grands Moulins du Tchad. The 1964 flour mill shuttered in 1980 and has not restarted since 1987. In the late 1970s, Lake Chad warfare devastated SODELAC infrastructure and polder development. Farmers protested SODELAC-controlled output.
Wheat production, like other grains, peaked in 1983. 1984 output fell. Northern Chadian herders preferred wheat to millet or sorghum, hence most wheat was traded.
Corn/rice
France grew little rice. Germans on the Cameroonian Logone River financed rice planting before WWI. By WWII, the French farmed La and Kélo along the Logone River in southern Chad. Rice became popular despite being designed for colonial armies. French cash crops had become local subsistence crops by the 1980s.
Peanuts
Peanuts feed Chad. Roasted or dry peanuts were fried in oil. The Sahels and Jordanians grew peanuts. Peanut output was the most steady, ranging from 90,000 to 100,000 tons from the 1950s to 1987, with reductions in dry years. Peanut production was maintained despite lower kg/ha yields. Peanuts were grown alone or with millet in the first year of crop rotation in the Sahel but in the third year in the Jordanian region. Peanuts, drought-resistant, were essential to the population.
Tubers
Tubers are essential now. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, and coco-yams produced less than cassava and yams (taro). East Sudanese savannas ignored tubers, but subtropical West Africa cultivates them. The 1950s estimated tuber production at 50,000 tons. 200,000 tons were produced by 1961. From 1961 to 1984, the national diet includes 6–17% roots and tubers. East Sudanese savanna inhabitants survived droughts with these crops.
Livestock
Cattle herding dominates. Animal husbandry supported 30% of Chad’s population. Livestock and meat exports rose. 25–30% of 1960s and 1970s merchandise exports were these. Cotton exports climbed after falling in the 1980s. Unknown cattle export values. Processed beef was less than 1% of merchandise exports in 1985. Traditional traders’ shipments to Cameroon and Nigeria gave Chad’s cattle herds value. Customs rarely regulated “on-the-go” exports. Exports were untaxed. Exports included 25% cattle.
