Agriculture in Angola Agriculture in Angola Agriculture in Angola has a tremendous potential. Angola is a potentially rich agricultural country, with fertile soils, a favourable climate, and about 57.4 million ha of agricultural land, including more than 5.0 million ha of arable land. Before independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola had a flourishing tradition of family-based farming and was self-sufficient in all major food crops except wheat. The country exported coffee and maize, as well as crops such as sisal, bananas, tobacco and cassava. By the 1990s Angola produced less than 1 percent the volume of coffee it had produced in the early
Cuban intervention in Angola fighting was taken up throughout the whole country. The independence movements attempted to seize key strategic points, most importantly the capital on the day of independence. In a meeting of the United States National Security Council (NSC) on 27 June 1975, U.S. President Gerald Ford said that, in spite of planned elections, it was important to get "his man" in first, referring to then UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi being in control of Luanda before the elections. Arthur Schlesinger pointed out at the same meeting that the U.S. "might wish to encourage the disintegration of Angola. Cabinda in the clutches of