Agriculture in Mauritania

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Located in the Sahelian and Saharan zones, Mauritania has one of the poorest agricultural bases in West Africa.

Most important to the rural economy has been the livestock subsector.

Between 1975 and 1980, herding engaged up to 70 percent of the population, and sedentary farmers constituted about 20 percent of the population.

The vast majority of the population lived in the southern one-third of the country, where rainfall levels were high enough to sustain cattle herding.

Farming was restricted to the narrow band along the Senegal River where rainfall of up to 600 millimeters per year and annual river flooding sustained crop production as well as large cattle herds.

In the dry northern two-thirds of the country, herding was limited to widely scattered pastoral groups that raised camels, sheep, and goats, and farming was restricted to date palms and minuscule plots around oases.