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A LASTING STORY: CONSERVATION AND AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICES IN COLONIAL MALAWI*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

ERIK GREEN
ERIK GREEN
Affiliation:
Stockholm University
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Abstract

Historians have written extensively about agricultural extension services and the linkages between colonial administrations and rural communities in British Africa. Most studies argue that it is possible to identify a qualitative shift in strategies between the inter- and the post-war periods. The former is characterized by modest attempts at promoting soil conservation, while the latter is described as a period when colonial governments in British Africa – guided by scientific knowledge – tried to transform peasant agriculture to increase production. This article questions this division by using colonial Malawi as a case. It reveals that the strategies and intensity of agricultural extension services changed over time but that the aim of intervention, i.e. to combat soil erosion, remained the focal point throughout the colonial period. This shows that it is important to distinguish between strategies and scale of intervention on the one hand and their aims and contents on the other. Changes in the former took place within the conservation paradigm. Additionally, this article reveals that agricultural extension services were directed by colonial officials' perceptions about African farmers rather than detailed empirical knowledge about existing farming methods.

Keywords

Malawiagriculturedevelopmentenvironment
Type
Colonial Conservation Measures
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , July 2009 , pp. 247 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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27 Mandala, ‘Work and control’, 141.

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30 Some members of the Board even resisted suggestions to increase supervision. In a dispatch in 1930, the Governor, Thomas Shenton, wrote to Lord Passfield, the Secretary of State for Colonies, saying that the estate owners, represented in the board of NTB, were reluctant to increase supervision, as they feared that it would lead to enlargement of peasants' tobacco gardens and ‘thereby create an overstocked market’. They were obviously worried about the increased competition, which increasingly threatened the survival of the weak estate sector, especially during the years of depression. As a matter of fact, instead of giving assistance to the peasants, the NTB increased their support to the estate sector during the late 1920s and early 1930s in an attempt to help them through the Depression. For example, in 1929, 19 estate owners received financial assistance from the NTB. NA, CO 525/135 Dispatch no. 510, from Governor to Secretary of State for Colonies, 6 Dec. 1930; NA, CO 525/125/33185, Dispatch from Governor to Secretary of State for Colonies, 16 July 1929.

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32 Ibid. 235.

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40 This figure could be compared with Tanganyika which received £2,012,413, and Kenya, which received only £335,364. Meredith ‘The British government’, 490.

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50 NA, CO 525/146/34287 Dispatch from Governor to Secretary of State for Colonies, 4 Oct. 1932.

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52 Beinart, ‘Soil erosion’, 62.

53 NA, CO 525/137 Dispatch from Governor to Secretary of State for Colonies, 30 Jan. 1930.

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57 NA, CO 626/16 Annual Report Department of Agriculture 1936; NA, CO 525/179/44071 Extract from Sir R. Bell's report, enclosed in a Dispatch from Secretary of State for Colonies to Governor, 1939.

58 NA, CO 525/179/44071 Extract from Sir R. Bell's report, enclosed in a Dispatch from Secretary of State for Colonies to Governor, 1939.

59 By the end of the 1930s there were 17 Agriculture Officers active in the whole Protectorate and, for the department as a whole, the number of staff increased from 47 in 1919 to 155 in 1939, which was simply not enough to meet the need of supervision. NA, CO 626/22 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1941; Baker, ‘Incremental but not disjointed’, 347.

60 NA, CO 626/19 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1937.

61 NA, CO 626/22 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1941.

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64 NA, CO 525/157 Dispatch from Governor to Secretary of State for Colonies, 4 Apr. 1935.

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73 It consisted of Nyasaland and Southern and Northern Rhodesia and lasted for ten years.

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75 NA, CO 1015/435 Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland Development Plan, 1953.

76 Net benefits consist of payments to Nyasaland minus the local revenues paid to the Federation.

77 Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore, Africa since 1800 (Cambridge, 1999), 197.

78 NA, CO 626/24 Report on Agricultural Development in Nyasaland by the Director of Agriculture, G. W. Nye, enclosed in Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1946.

79 NA, CO 525/208/44334 Colonial Economic and Development Council – Nyasaland Ten-Year Development Plan, June 1947.

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81 NA, CO 1015/249 Nyasaland Protectorate Ordinance of 1949.

82 By 1953 there were 59 European officers and 715 African instructors. NA, CO 1015/15 Progress Report for 1952 on the Nyasaland Agriculture Department Scheme, D 1550, enclosed in Dispatch from Governor to Secretary of State for Colonies, 7 July 1953; NA, CO 525/218/44334 Review of the Nyasaland Protectorate Development Plan to 1955, enclosed in Governor Dispatch to Secretary of State for Colonies.

83 Colby, ‘Recent progress’, 277–8.

84 NA, CO 626/24 Report on Agricultural Development in Nyasaland by the Director of Agriculture, G. W. Nye, enclosed in Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1946.

85 NA, CO 626/24 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1949.

86 NA, CO 626/24 Revised Post-War Development Report, 1947.

87 NA, CO 626/24 Report on Agricultural Development in Nyasaland by the Director of Agriculture, G. W. Nye, enclosed in Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1946; Edward S. Kabuye and Johnston A. Mhango, ‘A brief history of agricultural extension services in Malawi from 1948–2000’ (unpublished Draft, Lilongwe, 2006), 2–7.

88 NA, CO 626/19 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1936, 1937; NA, CO 626/22 Annual Report Department of Agriculture 1940, 1941, 1942; Beinart, ‘Soil erosion’, 197–8.

89 NA, CO 626/25 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1950.

90 In 1951, the fine was increased to £50 for a farmer being convicted for the first time, with the alternative of being sent to prison for six months. These figures could be compared with the minimum wage which, in 1951, was set at 35 shillings per month. Thus, the punishment for not following the orders was severe. NA, CO 625/7 The Natural Resource Ordinance 1946; NA, CO 625/8 Natural Resource (Amendment) (No. 2) Ordinance 1951; MNA, NNM 1/31/1, First meeting of the standing labour advisory board, Mzimba, Apr. 1950.

91 Kabuye and Mhango, ‘A brief history’, 6.

92 In 1955 the Department of Agriculture, for example, declared that the practice of constructing ridges was almost universal. MNA, AGR 1/53 Annual Report Department of Agriculture 1955.

93 NA, CO 626/24 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1948.

94 NA, CO 525/207/44332 Dispatch from Governor Sir E. Richmonds to Secretary of State for Colonies, 1946.

95 The actual discussion of resettlement had started already in the early 1940s but it first became policy after Abraham's report. PRO, CO 525/207/44322 Dispatch from Governor Colby to Secretary of State for Colonies, 1948.

96 Beinart, ‘Soil erosion’, 114.

97 NA, CO 626/31 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1954.

98 NA, CO 626/32 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1955.

99 Clement Ng'ong'ola, ‘The state, settlers, and indigenes in the evolution of land law and policy in colonial Malawi’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 1 (1990), 55.

100 NA, CO 626/27 African Protectorate Council – Record of ninth meeting held in Zomba, 21–24 June 1950.

101 Kalinga ‘The Master Farmers’ Scheme', 371.

102 MNA, PCN 1/2/34 Department of Agriculture Circular No. 1, ref. no. 3/2 M.F., Sept. 1953.

103 NA, CO 626/38 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1961.

104 NA, CO 626/41 Ministry of Natural Resources and Surveys Annual Report, 1962.

105 NA, CO 626/25 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1949.

106 For a detailed discussion about its causes, see Vaughan, African Famine.

107 Cited in Review of Nyasaland Protectorate Development Plan to 1955, enclosed in Governor Dispatch to Secretary of State for Colonies, Oct. 1950. NA, CO 525/218.

108 NA, CO 626/32 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1955.

109 NA, CO 1015/669 Tour of Nyasaland by W. H. Chinn, 1953.

110 For example, at the Southern Province African Provincial Council meeting in 1954, sub-chief Kamakanga from Mzimba district argued with great scepticism that a transformation towards private property would lead to the development of a landlord–tenant relationship between Africans. He continued by arguing that such a development would threaten the social harmony in the rural areas and therefore also put the colonial project at risk. MNA, PCS 1/19/11 Southern Province African Council Report, Sept. 1954.

111 MNA, PCS1/2/22 Provincial Production Plan, Southern Province, 1951.

112 NA, CO 626/24 Annual Report of the Post-War Development Committee, 1946; NA, CO 626/31 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1954.

113 NA, CO 626/31 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1954; MNA PCS1/2/22 Provincial Production Plan, Southern Province, 1952.

114 NA, CO 626/33 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1956.

115 MNA PCS1/19/4 Circular from the Director of Agriculture, 1951.

116 NA, CO 626/39 Annual Report of the Natural Resource Board, 1961.

117 NA, CO 626/32 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1955.

118 NA, CO 626/32 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1955; Beinart, ‘Soil erosion’, 109.

119 It could be compared with the calculated average annual income for an African, which in 1959 was said to be about £4.10. NA, CO 626/31 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1954; NA, CO 1015/1343 Report on African Land Improvement Scheme, 1959, by Colonial Development and Welfare Fund; Beinart, ‘Soil erosion’, 120.

120 NA, CO 625/35 Annual Report Department of Agriculture, 1958.

121 National Statistical Office of Malawi, Malawi Population Census 1966, Public Library.