In order to develop the trade market between Africa and France, and to make AOF as self-supporting territories with returning profits, the same as other preindustrial societies, the French government started with AOF’s agricultural development. Not only solving up civilians’ basic food crises, but agricultural surplus could help produce other products and commodities, which facilitates trade and market to flow and function. For example, the yearly massive production of peanuts in West Africa back in the 1980s had reached 5,288,000 metric tons.[22] Due to the huge consumer needs in the United States, they were transported and traded into cities of New York and Boston for direct sale.