To support its burgeoning textile industry, Angola has begun cultivating cotton again in the country’s Kwanza Sul province, according to Agricultural Minister Pedro Canga. The $30 million program, which was first announced in 2005 and begun the following year, will be expanded to include the Malanje, Zaire, Kwanza Norte, Benguela, Uige and Lundas provinces in coming years.
Japan has provided Angola with $500 million to fund the restart of three textile plants, creating local demand for cotton. Angola, which used to be an exporter of cotton and a variety of other crops, has 35 million hectares of arable land, but only 5% is currently being used. The 3,100 hectares of cotton fields in Kwanza Sul are irrigated by three pumping stations and three reservoirs, but the country is still working to rebuild its infrastructure after its war of independence with Portugal—a 14-year conflict that began as an uprising against forced cotton harvesting. Prior to 1975, Kwanza Sul was the nation’s second-largest cotton-producing region with 41,000 hectares of fields, but no cotton has been harvested there in more than 10 years.
Angola’s cotton industry peaked in 1974, the year before the war ended, with a total production if 150,000 bales. Production slumped to 20,000 bales in 1975 and only 5,000 bales in 1976, and hasn’t produced more than 20,000 bales in a single year since.