Adamawa Region

The Adamawa exists because water flows two directions from a single high place. At roughly 1,000 meters elevation—rising to 2,700 meters in the Gotel and Mambila Mountains—this plateau divides Cameroon's watershed: rivers flowing north feed Lake Chad through the Benue, while streams flowing south join the Congo Basin's journey to the Atlantic. Geography made this region a crossroads long before any administrator drew a boundary.

The Fulani arrived here in waves between the 16th and 20th centuries, following cattle and grass. They didn't choose Adamawa by accident—the plateau's altitude moderates the equatorial heat, its vast grasslands support large herds, and its low population density (still among Cameroon's lowest) meant room to range. When Modibo Adama established Ngaoundéré as a Fulani settlement in the early 19th century, he was building on a geographic logic that predated him: this is where the savanna supports zebu cattle, where the tsetse fly retreats, where pastoral people can thrive. By the late 19th century, the Adamawa Emirate—part of the Sokoto Caliphate—held political power across the region, sustained by cattle wealth and, until abolition, a population that was roughly 50% enslaved.

The colonial French recognized the plateau's strategic importance. When construction on the Trans-Cameroon Railway began in 1964, the tracks climbed from the coastal port of Douala through the rainforest to the capital Yaoundé, then continued north for another decade until reaching Ngaoundéré in 1974. That railroad connection transformed Adamawa from a remote pastoral zone into Cameroon's cattle export hub. Ngaoundéré became the place where beef travels by rail and livestock moves by hoof—a junction between old patterns and new infrastructure. The Fulani maintained their monopoly on cattle, but the nature of their work began to shift. What had been a purely nomadic lifestyle—following wet-season camps and dry-season migrations—gradually gave way to semi-nomadic patterns, then increasingly to sedentary ranching as market integration and land pressure intensified.

Today, Adamawa remains Cameroon's cattle country. The region's 60% Fulani population raises two main breeds: the Fulani zebu (large, meaty, dark-brown with white spots) near settled areas like Ngaoundéré and Banyo, and the Bororo zebu (leaner, lighter, built for long-distance travel) herded by the nomadic Bororo Fulani. Since 2019, over 360,000 livestock producers—22% of them women—have participated in the Livestock Development Project (PRODEL), which has driven cattle mortality for animals under six months down to 9.10% and increased milk production per cow per year by 527%. In 2025, Cameroon plans to establish the National Animal Seed Production Center in Wakwa, Adamawa, targeting 500 doses of cattle semen and 300 embryos annually to inseminate 276,000 cows. The government is betting that Adamawa's future lies in intensification—more output per animal, more dairy, more controlled breeding.

The pressure between pastoralism and ranching will define Adamawa's trajectory through 2026 and beyond. Fulani culture has long measured wealth in cattle headcount, discouraging slaughter even when herds grow unsustainably large. Modern ranching demands culling, controlled breeding, and fixed boundaries—a fundamental conflict with mobile pastoralism. The plateau that once offered endless range now faces subdivision, fencing, and optimization. Whether Adamawa adapts while preserving its pastoral identity or forces a final break with centuries of tradition depends on whether intensification can coexist with mobility, or whether sedentarization becomes complete.