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Somalia Rural Subsistence Sector
Somalia's rural subsistence sector produced sufficient grain
and animal products (mostly milk) to sustain the country's
growing population, including its massive refugee population.
According to economist Vali Jamal, data on the subsistence sector
underestimated the amount of milk and grain produced. The
official 1978 estimate of milk production was 451.4 million
liters; by using alternate data (for example, statistics on
lactating animals from an anthropology study, consumption
surveys, and interviews with nomads), Jamal estimated 2.92
billion liters of production, 6.5 times the official estimate.
Taking into account only this change in milk production would
raise GDP by 68 percent, making Somalia the forty-first rather
than the eighth poorest country in the world, with an average
annual per capita income of US$406.
Jamal's data showed a 58 percent increase in grain production
between 1972-74 and 1984. Production of sorghum and corn reached
a high of an estimated 260,000 tons and 382,000 tons respectively
in 1985, before declining in the period 1987-89. Grain imports
increased sixfold, however, between the early 1970s and 1985; the
increase was largely caused by the refugee influx and the added
imports needed to fill the food gap. After 1980 food production
increased but imports continued, primarily as a result of food
aid. Governments did not cut off food aid although the need for
it steadily receded. Despite donor objectives, most of the
imports went to urban shops rather than rural refugee camps.
Often missed by macroeconomic analyses was the vibrant
agropastoralist sector of the southern interriverine area.
Families mixed pastoralism--the raising of goats and sheep, and
sometimes camels--with grain production. The family unit was
highly versatile, and the division of labor within it changed
depending on the season and the amount of rainfall. During a
drought when women were obliged to trek for days in search of
water, men tended the household and crops. When water was
abundant, women maintained the household, and enabling the men to
concentrate on the livestock.
Trade between the pastoralist and agropastoralist sectors has
been greater than standard models of the Somali GNP have assumed.
Agropastoralists accumulated small grain surpluses in the 1980s,
and bartered this grain to pastoralists in exchange for milk. The
agropastoralists received more value from this trade than by
selling their grain directly to the government because government
prices for grain were lower than the growers' costs. IMF
agreements with the government repealed price limits on the sale
of grain; the consequences of this agreement for trade between
pastoralists and agropastoralists had not been reported as of
early 1992.
One of the great agricultural success stories of
privatization caused great embarrassment to the IMF. Qat (also
spelled "kat," catha edulis) is a mild stimulant narcotic;
many Somalis chew the qat leaf during leisure time. Qat is grown
in the Ethiopian highlands and in Kenya and is transported
through Somalia. In the late 1960s, farmers near Hargeysa began
growing it. During the drought of the 1970s, the qat plants
survived and their cultivators made handsome profits. Investment
in qat plants soared in the 1980s. Sales of qat enabled farmers
to stay ahead of inflation during a time when prices for other
crops fell. Many farmers used their profits to rent tractors and
to hire day laborers; doing so enabled them to increase food
production while continuing to grow qat. The large surplus income
going to qat farmers created a free market in land, despite
national laws prohibiting land sales. The IMF never mentioned
this economic success as part of the positive results of its
program. The government wrongly believed that the production of
qat was cutting into grain production; the data of political
scientist Abdi Ismail Samatar indicates that farmers producing
qat grew more grain than those who did not produce qat. The
government also believed that qat was harmful because it was
making the general population drug-dependent. The Siad Barre
regime hence banned qat production, and in 1984 qat fields were
destroyed by government teams. Nevertheless, the qat story of the
1980s demonstrated the vibrancy of the Somali economy outside the
regulatory regimes of the government and the IMF.
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