Economic history Africa, from its origins to today, main sectors including agriculture, livestock, subsoil resources, industries and communication routes.
Agriculture Africa
The constitutive nucleus of African economies dates back to the nineteenth century, when the division of the continent between the colonial powers that found a source of supply for their industries in Africa, both through an intense exploitation of mineral resources and through the creation of large plantations colonial, including coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton and peanuts.
The adoption of exasperated forms of monoculture and the progressive reduction of the times reserved for forest fallows have led to the degradation of the land and the consequent impoverishment of local populations dedicated to subsistence agriculture.
Only in the territories that, due to their more favorable climatic and environmental conditions, lent themselves to the settlement of Europeans, such as South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya, agriculture has taken on more rational and varied forms, as also in Algeria and Tunisia , with the introduction of citrus, viticulture and olive growing.
Elsewhere, however, a clear separation has been created between industrial crops and subsistence crops, the former destined for export and subject to price fluctuations on international markets, the latter less and less sufficient to cover the food needs of the population due to the very low productivity. traditional techniques.
While in the past the problem of hunger did not arise in Africa with the gravity of other underdeveloped areas, it has now assumed dramatic proportions, since in recent decades the increase in the gross national product has been, for various countries, less than population growth.
The decline was general, but not uniform, resulting particularly marked for central and western Africa, including the Sahel belt most affected by drought.
The forecasts for the future are even more worrying, given the difficulty of promptly implementing an adequate agricultural policy, which will block wild tillage, at the expense of the forest and the savannah, which favor the advance of the deserts and, directly consenguenza, the drastic reduction of areas intended for cultivation.
Although only slightly more than half of African agricultural land is actually cultivated, today instead of tending to expand the agricultural area, it is preferred to optimize the use of the land by increasing its production per square meter with the use of fertilizers, highly selected seeds, plants adequate irrigation and pesticides of the latest generation, with a particular focus on the improvement of product conservation systems.
The lack of part of the necessary funding, the environmental conditions and the technological delay of the local populations, however, unfortunately tend to slow down this progress in incentives and diversification of crops.
breeding
Especially in the areas of the savannah and the pre-desert steppe, the breeding is still linked to the seasonal transhumance, typical of a nomadic and semi-nomadic herding, which in drought periods often involves the death of thousands of cattle.
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Although the African livestock heritage is far from negligible in terms of number of animals, it does not correspond to an adequate production of meat and dairy products, except for the regions with more advanced agriculture, where the yield of slaughtered cattle exceeds even the average European.
Mineral Resources
Africa remains a large supply market for the industrial countries that draw on its huge mineral resources, from bauxite, Guinea's greatest wealth, to the iron that abounds in Liberia, Mauritania and South Africa, to the copper of which are major world producers Zambia and Zaire.
South Africa is the main African mining power, the world's largest producer of chromium, gold and manganese as well as diamonds. Morocco and Tunisia are major phosphate producers while Nigeria and Libya are among the world's major oil producers, followed by Egypt, Algeria, Angola and Gabon.
Industries
The exploitation of gaseous hydrocarbons has had a rapid development especially in Algeria, the African country to have made a greater commitment, with the gains deriving from oil, to encourage the industrialization process.
Metallurgical, mechanical, chemical and petrochemical plants, with oil pipelines, which transport crude oil to the ports of embarkation, and gas pipelines together with many refineries located along the coasts.
Despite this development, Africa continues to be the least industrialized area of the world.
Communications
Traditional means of animal transport are disappearing, being replaced by vehicles that travel through a dense network of roads and carriageways.
As for the railways, these are distributed unevenly among the various parts of the African continent, the most developed railway network is that of South Africa, quite advanced are those of the countries of the Atlas and the Nile, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
The great rivers, which in the past have represented the major communication routes, have not stopped having a fair importance, thanks especially to the construction of railway and road sections to circumvent their rapids which for long stretches were insurmountable obstacles to normal navigation.
Air transport has developed especially in recent years, the main African centers are connected to each other and to many countries in the world.
