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Marketing Schemes for Native-Grown Produce in African Territories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Charlotte Leubuscher
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Extract

Governmental intervention in the sphere of marketing has become a feature of increasing frequency in the post-war economic policy of many countries, particularly during and since the economic depression of 1930 to 1932. In general, raw materials and foodstuffs have been made the object of regulations by authorities and statutory bodies more than manufactured articles, since the producers of the latter are usually able to come to voluntary agreements in relation to prices, limitation of production, &c., without the help of the Government. The general factors and ideologies which have brought about this considerable public intervention into a sphere which was left predominantly to private enterprise in pre-war days, are more or less common to all countries, but the particular difficulties and problems which have prompted statutory measures differ from country to country.

Résumé

LE MARCHÉ DES PRODUITS INDIGÈNES DANS LES TERRITOIRES AFRICAINS

Les mesures adoptées par les Gouvernements d'Afrique afin de contrôler sur les marchés la production indigène sont intervenues après la guerre. Le principal motif de leur adoption a été d'abord le désir de n'exporter que des matières de haute qualité et aussi la nécessité de relever l'organisation du commerce en éliminant les éléments douteux et en réduisant le nombre excessif des intermédiaires. Il s'agissait enfin d'assurer aux producteurs des prix convenables en accordant des primes aux matières de haute classe.

Les mesures varient naturellement suivant les conditions locales et la nature des produits à contrôler. L'inspection obligatoire, et, pour le cacao, le classement en vue de l'exportation sont les principales règles de conduite adoptées en Nigéria et en Gold Coast. Dans ce dernier pays l'inspection des produits et leur classement ont provoqué beaucoup plus d'opposition qu'en Nigéria, une des principales difficultés qui s'élève contre l'adoption de meilleurs procédés pour préparer le cacao étant ici l'endettement considérable du planteur et par suite le peu d'intérêt qu'il prend à conditionner sa récolte.

Dans l'Ouganda et au Tanganyika, les interventions concernant les principales récoltes indigènes ont été beaucoup plus sévères. Ainsi on a limité le nombre des acheteurs et, dans le cas du coton, le nombre des usines d'égrenage; des produits ont été obligatoirement dirigés sur certains marchés et à l'intérieur de certaines zones, par exemple pour le coton; le Gouvernement a reçu le pouvoir de fixer des prix minima à payer aux producteurs. L'expérience poursuivie au Tanganyika et sur les marchés et les produits indigènes est une des plus intéressantes et des plus réussies qui aient été entreprises. La récolte de café de Bukoba est vendue à des acheteurs pourvus d'une licence spéciale; elle est l'objet d'un contrôle administratif et d'un conditionnement qui ont donné d'excellents résultats. Au Kilimandjaro les coopératives de vente ont eu une histoire mouvementée, il a fallu adopter une législation nouvelle récemment, pour leur donner une solide base juridique.

La plupart des mesures dont il vient d'être question sont encore au stade expérimental; les divers règlements, les restrictions imposées à la vente de certains produits indigènes, la politique tendant á éviter la concurrence entre les acheteurs sont susceptibles de causer certains mécomptes au point de vue économique aussi bien que social. Quelle que soit la part considérable que la coopération est susceptible de jouer dans l'évolution future des sociétés africaines, pour le présent elle ne peut guère contribuer à résoudre le problème des marchés. On est obligé de reconnaître que le fait actuel le plus important dans cet ordre d'idées est la relation étroite qui existe entre l'amélioration des méthodes de production et les initiatives destinées à procurer des crédits et des facilités monétaires aux pay sans africains. Il y a encore beaucoup à faire à cet égard.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 1939 , pp. 163 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1939

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References

page 166 note 1 Report of Committee upon the System of Produce Inspection in Nigeria, Sessional Paper, No. I of 1932 (quoted in future as ‘Committee’), p. 4Google Scholar.

page 166 note 2 Committee, p. 8.

page 166 note 3 Report on a Visit to West Africa, Colonial Office, C.A.C. 270.Google Scholar

page 167 note 1 Committee, p. 8.

page 167 note 2 Annual Report of the Agricultural Department for the Year 1937, p. 39.

page 168 note 1 The Commission on the Marketing of West African Cocoa of 1938 (Cmd.5845) consider unofficial inspection as undesirable in principle and object to it because it encourages forms of petty extortion. They recommend its replacement by a system operated by Native Authorities under the supervision of the official Produce Inspectorate (p. 175).

page 169 note 1 The only firm of any importance which stood out was the English and Scottish Joint Co-operative Wholesale Society. The whole movement is described and the cases made out by the various parties considered in the Report of the Commission on the Marketing of West African Cocoa mentioned above.

page 169 note 2 A detailed description of the industry from an agricultural as well as an economic point of view is given by Professor Shephard, C. Y. in his Report on The Economics of Peasant Agriculture in the Gold Coast, Gold Coast, No. 1 of 1936.Google Scholar

page 170 note 1 Coast, Gold. Memorandum on the Creation of a Fund for improving the Quality and Marketing of Cocoa. Sessional Paper, No. XVIII of 1930-1931.Google Scholar

page 170 note 2 According to the Commission of 1938 this superiority does not seem to have been generally maintained. Cmd. 5845, p. 45.

page 170 note 3 Coast, Gold. Report of the Cocoa Exportation Committee, No. 11 of 1934.Google Scholar

page 171 note 1 According to Stockdale 4,000 tons of rejected cocoa were reduced within 28 days to a stock of only 195 tons, the rest having been mixed and passed for export, loc. cit., p. 60.

page 172 note 1 Loc. cit., p. 45. According to the estimates of agricultural officers 75 per cent, of Gold Coast farmers pledge their crops on very unfavourable terms. If a farm is mortgaged, the lender claims the whole crop as long as the debt exists, although the sum lent is usually not more than one year's yield. Repayment in cash is demanded at rates of interest as high as 25 to 100 per cent. Shephard, loc. cit., p. 40 seq.

page 172 note 2 H. B. Thomas and Robert Scott, Uganda, chap. viii. In some years cotton has accounted for 90 per cent, of Uganda's domestic exports.

page 173 note 1 The number of ginneries rose from 20 in 1914 to 42 in 1919 and amounted to 194 in 1936. The acreage planted with cotton increased from 143,000 in 1918-19 o t 426,738 in 1923 and 1,736,900 in 1937. The export of lint which was 241 bales only in 1905-6 and 36,530 in 1919-20, amounted to 338,391 bales in 1937. (Uganda. Reports of Department of Agriculture.)

page 173 note 2 Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Cotton Industry of Uganda, 1929, p. 18.Google Scholar

page 173 note 3 The principal Ordinance is the Cotton Ordinance of 1933. Regulations providing for the control of the cultivation, marketing, and ginning of cotton were however issued before 1933.

page 174 note 1 Uganda. Report of Department of Agriculture for 1936.

page 175 note 1 Uganda Official Gazette, 25th 07, 1938.Google Scholar

page 175 note 2 For details, see Thomas and Scott, loc. cit., chap, ix, and Sir Stockdale, Frank, Report on a Visit to East Africa, 1937, C.A.C. 345.Google Scholar

page 176 note 1 Legislation on the same lines as in Tanganyika was passed with good results i n 1935 in Kenya (Marketing of Native Produce Ordinance). See , Stockdale, Visit to East Africa, p. 87.Google Scholar In Northern Rhodesia on the other hand, the measure proved a failure except in the more densely populated mining districts. Report on the Financial and Economic Conditions of N. Rhodesia, by Sir Pirn, Alan, Col. No. 145, 1938, p. 28.Google Scholar

page 177 note 1 Tanganyika, . Department of Agriculture. Report for 1931, p. 7 seq.Google Scholar

page 177 note 2 Ibid.Report for 1935, p. 10 seq.

page 178 note 1 Provincial Commissioners' Reports for 1937, p. 26.

page 178 note 2 Cotton Ordinance. No. 12 of 1937.

page 179 note 1 Report on the Kilimanjaro Native Co-operative Union (Tanganyika Legislative Council: Sessional Paper No. 4 of 1937), where the history of various attempts at organizing native coffee growers is told.Google Scholar

page 180 note 1 The history of the events leading up to the recent conflict and of the latter itself is set out in a Memorandum by the Administration drawn up for the Permanent Mandates Commission, and published in the Annual Report on the Administration of Tanganyika Territory for 1937, Appendix vi, 1938, Colonial No. 148.Google Scholar

page 181 note 1 One of the most important questions with which it was not possible to deal in this article is to what extent it is desirable or otherwise to use Native Authorities as agencies for passing marketing measures. Recent experience in Tanganyika particularly seems to point significant lessons in this respect. Whilst the establishment of Native Authority Produce Markets under rules of strictly local application has had satisfactory results, the attempt to impose unified marketing control on the native coffee crop of the Kilimanjaro area through the Native Authorities has not been so successful. According to expert local opinion it has burdened the latter in a field alien to them with a responsibility which should be borne by the central Government with whom the regulations originated (as is the case under the new Ordinance).

page 182 note 1 This would no longer be the case, however, if the scheme recommended by the Commission on the Marketing of West African Cocoa of 1938 were adopted. It proposes to unite all cocoa producers of the Gold Coast in a statutory body which would carry out selling operations under the direction of a Government-appointed European manager, that is to say, a monopolistic organization would be established on the side of the producers. The scheme has great similarity to that applied, on a smaller scale, to native coffee in the Kilimanjaro area of Tanganyika, described above.

page 182 note 2 How much it was felt until recently that Government control in the sphere of marketing was a departure from accepted principles is shown by the following passage of the Nigerian Committee on Produce Inspection of 1931: ‘In the first place, we desire to record our opinion that it is not an essential function of Government to ensure that only a high standard of produce is exported. But, while enunciating this general principle, we recognise that circumstances and conditions may be such as to render it politically and economically advisable to assume some form of control of the marketing of raw produce.’ Loc. cit., p. 7.

page 183 note 1 Loc. cit., p. 43.

page 183 note 2 Ibid., p. 49.

page 184 note 1 Some of the arguments of this paragraph apply more to West Africa than to East Africa where most of the middlemen are non-natives; but even there, according to a recent pronouncement by an Administration, ‘all the evidence goes to show that the native and non-native trade are complementary and not antagonistic’, and the Indian traders perform a useful and essential economic function. Report on the Administration of Tanganyika Territory for 1937, p. 73.

page 184 note 2 Loc. cit., p. 151 seq.

page 185 note 1 Loc. cit., p. 145.

page 186 note 1 In West Africa, this combination of functions prevails throughout the trading organization, beginning with the big exporting firms who supply advances to native middlemen and agents and act at the same time as importers of trade goods. It was this combination of buying and selling activities of which the Gold Coast native is well aware, which made it possible for the farmers to attack the buying pool with the double-edged weapon of a sales' strike and a boycott of trade goods.

page 186 note 2 Territory, Tanganyika. Department of Agriculture. Report for 1936, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 187 note 1 Loc. cit., pp. 44 seq. and 128.