The Dervish war indirectly stimulated western Somali adoption of sorghum cultivation

Evidence

Notwithstanding this gloomy picture, however, an extremely significant development had in fact occurred, almost unnoticed, and without any assistance or aid from the Protectorate authorities. This was the gradual adoption of sorghum cultivation in the western part of the territory (in Borama and Hargeisa Districts), far from the scene of the Dervish operations in the centre and east. From shortly before the turn of the century, the Gadabursi clan and sections of the Habar Awal (especially the Jibril Abokor) living in the higher and better-watered land in the west had begun to follow the example of their kinsmen in the Jigjiga region of clearing areas of bush and planting sorghum, the ground being tilled by ox-drawn wooden ploughs. This comparatively advanced system of cultivation, strikingly different from the hand hoe technique employed in southern Somalia, seems to have been pioneered locally by a few religious settlements from which it soon spread to the surrounding clansmen. Far from hindering this economic revolution, the effect of the Dervish war appears on the contrary to have stimulated it by creating a highly lucrative market for local grain. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 285

Categorization

• XREF: Counter-intuitive war-stimulates-agriculture mechanism parallels other wartime economic-effects literature. — connects to: The Dervish army broke with Somali clan organization to build unity; Dervish campaigns strengthened Ethiopia’s position in the Ogaden; the MOC “The Nation That Couldn’t Hold: How Somali Clanship, Colonial Partition, and Pan-Somali Dreams Pulled the Seams Apart”
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 285

Related

• Dervish campaigns strengthened Ethiopia’s position in the Ogaden (similarity 0.92)
• The Dervish army broke with Somali clan organization to build unity (similarity 0.83)