Working in the fields of Madagascar

Working in the fields of Madagascar

We took this picture of a woman working on these colourful fields of Madagascar during our trip there back in 2011.

Due to the roughness of the land, only 5.1% of the land area is cultivated and production still remains at levels of pure subsistence; the main crops are rice, manioc, beans, bananas, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, fruit and cotton. Productivity has not always kept pace with population growth and imports of substantial quantities of food, especially rice, became necessary in the late 1970s. The food products for export are coffee, cloves, sugar cane, sisalana agave, coconut palm, tobacco and vanilla (of which Madagascar is the world’s leading producer).