This feature length article with lots of pictures was in today's New York Times. It is a gift link so should be readable to all despite the paywall. As always, read the whole thing. This is just an excerpt:
The Mennonite Colony That Made a Deal With a Diamond Company
Eight families of Mennonites have moved from Mexico to Angola, in southern Africa, raising fears among some Angolans that they will be squeezed out by the new arrivals.
Not long ago, the field where Charlotte Itala picks corn with her friends was a hunting ground where people in her small African village caught antelope, boar and forest buffalo.
Now that land has been plowed over by her new employers, a group of Old Colony Mennonites.
The Mennonites, adherents of a Christian sect founded in the 16th century, number nearly 60 people in all, most of whom set out from Mexico almost a year ago to establish a settlement in northeastern Angola. As part of an agreement with a diamond mining company, they have cleared and cultivated nearly 2,000 acres, hoping to build a community that other Mennonites from the Americas can join.
A map of Angola locating Cambanze in Lunda Norte province. Luanda is also shown.
The new families, who use shipping containers as makeshift homes, have impressed some Angolans but raised fears among others. In Ms. Itala’s village, Cambanze, some worry that the Mennonites may be just the latest outsiders to move in with little regard for the people who live there.
. . .
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Sun Jun 15, 2025 8:36 pm
This feature length article with lots of pictures was in today's New York Times. It is a gift link so should be readable to all despite the paywall. As always, read the whole thing. This is just an excerpt:
The Mennonite Colony That Made a Deal With a Diamond Company
Eight families of Mennonites have moved from Mexico to Angola, in southern Africa, raising fears among some Angolans that they will be squeezed out by the new arrivals.
Not long ago, the field where Charlotte Itala picks corn with her friends was a hunting ground where people in her small African village caught antelope, boar and forest buffalo.
Now that land has been plowed over by her new employers, a group of Old Colony Mennonites.
The Mennonites, adherents of a Christian sect founded in the 16th century, number nearly 60 people in all, most of whom set out from Mexico almost a year ago to establish a settlement in northeastern Angola. As part of an agreement with a diamond mining company, they have cleared and cultivated nearly 2,000 acres, hoping to build a community that other Mennonites from the Americas can join.
A map of Angola locating Cambanze in Lunda Norte province. Luanda is also shown.
The new families, who use shipping containers as makeshift homes, have impressed some Angolans but raised fears among others. In Ms. Itala’s village, Cambanze, some worry that the Mennonites may be just the latest outsiders to move in with little regard for the people who live there.
. . .
Yup. They need these skilled farmers desperately. The large urban populations they are beginning to develop will not be fed through subsistence hunting and gathering. They need these people, just like the landowners in the Palatinate and the Russians needed them. They will move farming methods forward a thousand years. Then when they are finished with them............
Besides, the diamond market is crashing. Lab grown diamonds, you know.
Angola’s population is over 30 million, with almost 10 million in the capital city.
Somehow I doubt 60 Russian Mennonites will be crowding them out. They may find, however, that a sustainable agricultural sector emerges, much as it also did in Mexico and Ukraine.
I wonder what crops they’re planning to do. The photos suggest corn. You can see the corn plants in the field and they’re knee- to waist-height which corn can do if it’s planted further south than it’s intended for. I wonder if they brought their corn seed from Mexico. The article doesn’t say where they came from but it could be 10-20° difference or more.
They probably in for a challenge since it sounds like they’ll have to pioneer a lot of the commercial agriculture supply infrastructure themselves. I hope they do well.
Pelerin wrote: ↑Mon Jun 16, 2025 7:32 pm
I wonder what crops they’re planning to do. The photos suggest corn. You can see the corn plants in the field and they’re knee- to waist-height which corn can do if it’s planted further south than it’s intended for. I wonder if they brought their corn seed from Mexico. The article doesn’t say where they came from but it could be 10-20° difference or more.
They probably in for a challenge since it sounds like they’ll have to pioneer a lot of the commercial agriculture supply infrastructure themselves. I hope they do well.
The latitude at Cambanze where they are located is about 12 degrees south. That is similar to the latitude of Guatemala where the Mayans have been growing corn for millennia.
Corn is both a nitrogen-intensive and water-intensive plant. So their success in cultivating corn will depend mostly on soil fertility and irrigation or rainfall. Not latitude. Unlike corn, soybeans are legumes and nitrogen fixing so they can be grown in poorer soil (or don't require as much fertilizer), but still require water.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
I generally support migration and I hope if works out well for them and the local community. The conflict between people who work the ground and people who hunt and gather or herd is well established and asymmetrical. It maybe good for the overall economy of Angola to develop industrial farming, it will not be good for the specific group who live on the land now.
JohnH wrote: ↑Tue Jun 17, 2025 8:44 am
Angola seems to import an alarming amount of food aid.
Seems it would be a good thing to start growing food domestically. Change can happen. Hunter-gatherers can learn how to till fields and grow crops.
Should they be forced to learn or should they be allowed a choice?
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A Confessing Church would acknowledge the inescapable realities of sin and injustice in every human institution, including every political party. It would wholeheartedly reject any suggestion that one party or movement is the party of God. Paul D Miller
Wife: it’s hard to tell whether or not the New York Times is sensationalizing this or not, but I think it’s disappointing if they don’t even have a mission focus for this. Also found it interesting that they were getting kicked out of the last country because of deforestation/round up. it would be interesting to hear a less biased article before I made an actual judgment on it. It seems like it would be good to go with a focus on blessing the locals and not just on economics, but I don’t actually know what all their motives were.