Colonialism

Under colonial rule, the plantation system of farming was widely introduced in order to grow large quantities of cash crops, employing cheap (often slave) African labor for export to European countries with little or no compensation. Mining for gems and precious metals such as gold was developed in a similar way by wealthy European entrepreneurs such as Cecil Rhodes.

The implementation and effects of these colonial policies were, arguably, genocidal in a number of cases. Belgian government commissions in the 1920s, for example, found that the population of Belgian Congo had fallen by as much as 50%, or from roughly 20 million to 10 million people, under Belgian rule as a result of forced labor (largely for the purposes of rubber cultivation), massacre by colonial troops, famine and disease.[8]. In white settler colonies like Algeria, Kenya, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), South Africa and Southwest Africa (now Namibia), the most fertile lands were forcibly expropriated from the indigenous populations for use by white settlers.

African farmers were pushed onto "native reserves," usually located on arid, marginal lands. In German Southwest Africa, somewhere between 25,000 and 100,000 Hereros were killed either resisting land expropriation by white settlers, or by starvation in the desert where they were exiled. The legacy of these land expropriations remains in Africa today, as over 80% of the arable land in both South Africa and Namibia remains white-owned.[9]

Today, many African economies suffer from the legacy of colonialism. The utilitarian attitude of European countries toward their colonial possessions stopped them from building adequate infrastructure in Africa. In agriculture, the plantation systems that they introduced are highly unsustainable and cause severe environmental degradation. For example, cotton severely lowers soil fertility wherever it is grown, and areas of West Africa that are dominated by cotton plantations are now unable to switch to more profitable crops or even to produce food because or the depleted soil.

Recently, more countries have initiated programs to revert to traditional, sustainable forms of agriculture such as shifting cultivation and bush fallow in order to grow enough food to support the population while maintaining soil fertility to allow agriculture to continue in future generations