During the 1950s, the Kofyar began to settle in the fertile plains of the Benue Valley to the south of the Jos Plateau. Pioneering farms there used extensive slash-and-burn methods, but with rising population density and market stimulus, intensive methods were gradually introduced. By the 1980s, Benue Valley Kofyar were producing considerable surpluses of yams, rice, peanuts, pearl millet and sorghum using labor-intensive but generally sustainable methods – an interesting contrast to the externally supported agricultural development schemes in the region, which have generally failed.