The Niari valley is a fertile region in the Niari Department in the south west of the Republic of the Congo. The soil in the area is good and this state is an important agricultural and industrial region.

Geography

The Mayombé Escarpment in the Republic of the Congo rises to and runs parallel with the coast. It is a forested area with high rainfall. Inland from this and at a lower elevation is the Niari Valley. It is an area of

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland- grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...

h and woodland and the rainfall here is lower. The valley has most of the country's agribusinesses and the main crops are

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...

, cocoa, sugar,

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

and palm oil. Livestock is also reared in this area. The River Niari is not used for transport because the navigable stretches are separated by frequent rapids, and where it flows through the Mayombé Escarpment there are gorges. Big game such as

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae ...

, leopard and buffalo still roam in this area, especially in the Mount Fouari Reserve.

History of agriculture

The Niari Valley has an area of about 400,000 hectares. Three quarters of this is fertile land with a deep layer of humus. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the families of a group of people that had been in the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

in Aubeville, France, moved to the valley to set up a communal farming project. At the time some pioneering French farmers were already located in the valley but there were few native inhabitants in the area. The valley had the advantage of having the only railway line in the country running through it. The new settlers were granted a concession of 5,500 hectares but encountered difficulties in their early years, including plant pests and diseases, droughts and occasionally hailstorms. They did small-scale crop raising, poultry rearing and livestock husbandry, and tried out new crops such as

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

, groundnuts and

. Not long afterwards, research stations were set up by the French state which planted oil-palm plantations, built mills to extract the oil, mechanized the production of peanuts, experimented with growing '' Urena lobata'', planted sugarcane and built a sugar refinery, mechanized rice production, and grew

citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. The genus ''Citrus'' is native to ...

, bananas and

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...

s. Other enterprises included prospecting for minerals, a tree nursery for limba was established and a herd of about 2,000

N'Dama N'Dama is a breed of cattle from West Africa. Other names for them include Boenca or Boyenca (Guinea-Bissau), Fouta Jallon, ''Djallonké'' or ''Djallonké cattle'', Fouta Longhorn, Fouta Malinke, Futa, Malinke, Mandingo (Liberia), and N'Dama Peti ...

cattle was built up. In 1970 the agricultural assets and the sugar plantations were nationalised and became a state run organisation, ''Société Industrielle et Agricole du Niari''. By 1978 there had been an 80% decline in sugar production and the company went bankrupt, owing large sums to the treasury. The same year, it was broken into three parts, one being ''Sucrerie du Congo''. By 1988, sugar plantations covered 22,000 hectares, but, after a few good years, the labour force had grown too large and productivity had fallen, so in 1991 the company was privatised once again under the name ''SARIS-Congo''.

References

{{reflist Geography of the Republic of the Congo Niari Department Agriculture in the Republic of the Congo