Imperialism and Development

The East African Groundnut Scheme and Its Legacy
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-1-84701-345-3
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 50, 260 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 374 g

Reihe: Eastern Africa Series

A compelling exploration of one of the most ill-advised and calamitous interventions in colonial development history.

As colonial development took off after the Second World War, in the context of national food shortages, Britain's Labour Government initiated the Groundnut Scheme, an extraordinarily ambitious project to convert 3 million acres of bush in Tanganyika into the largest mechanized groundnut farm in the world. It was to prove the largest, most expensive and most disastrous development scheme ever undertaken by the British Government. Never previously analysed in depth, the author draws on a wide range of sources to discuss the political dynamics that drove the Groundnut Scheme forward, despite the gravest doubts of agriculturalists and economists, why it went wrong, and what its impact has been since on the practice of economic development.

Initially employing the United Africa Company as agent, the government set up an Overseas Food Corporation to manage the Groundnut Scheme as an example of socialist development in Africa. Army surplus kit and demobbed soldiers poured into the country and were sent up the railway line to Kongwa to beat the bush. By the time the effort was abandoned in 1950, costs had risen to a colossal 36 million - equivalent to over 1 billion today - and yet almost no groundnuts had been exported. The prototype of many large-scale, government-run, high-cost development projects that failed to deliver, the Groundnut Scheme was perhaps the first major failure of agricultural development in Africa, and its legacy in development practice still with us today.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Westcott, Nicholas

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Entwicklungsstudien
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Kolonialismus, Imperialismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Afrikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft Entwicklungsökonomie & Emerging Markets

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
Austerity
A Scheme is Born
"The Poison of the Official Pen."
The Groundnut Army
Beating about the Bush
The Overseas Food Corporation
1949: The Crisis
The Last Chance
A Sudden Death
Legacy and Lessons

Über Autor(innen)

Westcott, Nicholas
Nicholas Westcott is Director of the Royal African Society and Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. His previous posts include Managing Director, Middle East and North Africa, and prior to that Managing Director for Africa, European External Action Service (EU), Brussels.