Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme
The Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme ( English for "Tanganyika-Erdnuss-Plan", sometimes also referred to as the East African Groundnut Scheme " East African Groundnut Plan") was a major agricultural industrial project of the British government in Tanganyika from 1946 to 1951.
Originally the Ministry of Food planned to produce peanuts on a large scale in East Africa with up to 40,000 workers by reclamation and cultivation of an area of up to 3.25 million acres (13,200 km²) in East Africa for the production of peanut oil . At the same time, the colonial policy under the Labor government of Clement Attlee was to stand out from that of his Tory predecessor, Winston Churchill (New Colonialism) . It was the largest and most expensive project of its kind in colonial history.
Due to serious planning deficiencies , the project failed after 49 million British pounds had been spent, which corresponds to 1,666,000,000 euros based on current purchasing power in 2013 . The political scandal, the Groundnut Affair ("peanut scandal"), consisted in the fact that the Ministry had tolerated negligent and incorrect accounting of the project funds from the beginning of 1948. In addition, by mid-1949, due to increasing criticism, it had deliberately spread false reports about alleged successes of the plan.
In January 1951 the project had to be ended. Minister John Strachey was transferred to the War Department as Secretary of State . Together with the costly involvement in the Korean War , the people's confidence in the incumbent government fell, so that Attlee lost the early lower house elections in 1951 and Churchill was again Prime Minister of the United Kingdom .
To this day, the term “Groundnut Scheme” in common British usage and among development aid experts around the world is associated with a waste of public funds as a result of incorrect planning in large-scale projects.
initial situation
During the Potsdam Conference in 1945 Winston Churchill was replaced by Clement Attlee from the Labor Party in the general election in the United Kingdom. Labor propagated a new welfare state that - based on extensive care for the individual - would quickly overcome the consequences of war and lead to an improvement in general prosperity . The colonies should also be closely involved in this concept . If these have so far been administered according to the principle of indirect rule , the African colonies in particular should make their contribution to supplying the mother country. Attlee called this New Colonialism .
In the post-war period, there was a significant shortage of vegetable fats in Europe . In Great Britain, the ration of vegetable fat allocated on food stamps was below the requirement, so that the Ministry of Food asked the question of a possible increase. Due to the consequences of the war, no short-term improvement was foreseeable. Of all oilseeds , peanuts appeared to be particularly suitable, since coconuts or olives require several years from sowing to the first oil production. Oilseed rape , cotton and sunflowers grow quickly, but require significant rainfall. Peanuts make only minor demands on the fertility of the soil and only require around 500 mm of rainfall per year.
In this situation, Frank Samuel , director of the United Africa Company (UAC), a subsidiary of Unilever , suggested that the situation should be improved by planting peanuts in Africa . The British- Dutch conglomerate Unilever produced body care products (e.g. Lux soap), food (especially margarine ) and other products for which vegetable fat was or is necessary as a raw material. Samuel was responsible for the procurement of these raw materials, at the same time for the Africa business of the parent company. He assumed that demand would continue to rise sharply worldwide. After discussions with R. W. R. Miller, the director of the agricultural department of the British colonial administration in Dar es Salaam , in February 1946 he drew up a concept for the cultivation of peanuts in Tanganyika.
On March 22, 1946, Food Secretary Sir Ben Smith was expected by numerous journalists on his return from talks in the United States at Heathrow Airport. They wanted to get an opinion from him on the planned reduction in fat rations after the ministry's plans had become public. On March 26, Smith had to admit problems to the opposition during question time in the House of Commons. That evening, Samuel presented his plan to the minister.
This consisted of a five-year plan to gain agricultural land in East Africa for peanut oil production. Since Samuel assumed insurmountable difficulties for a private company in the procurement of material and equipment at the time of the cultivation , he suggested that the government should take responsibility for the project itself. The concept envisaged the reclamation of 2,555,000 acres (10,340 km²) within five years. The resulting cost should be around eight million pounds.
Smith and the Attlee Administration came in handy. In the colonies, thousands of soldiers who had been deployed as auxiliary troops or as paramilitary construction crews during the Second World War were unemployed and had to be fired, which is why tensions were feared. In addition, the government assumed that means of transport, road construction and clearing equipment were still largely available from army stocks.
planning phase
The Department of Food set up a commission, and John Wakefield was appointed chairman. He had previously taken the view that the low crop yields of the indigenous population of Africa were essentially due to inadequate cultivation methods. In addition, he was of the opinion that the insufficient food production in the countryside was responsible for the rural exodus and the emergence of slums around the big cities. He saw in the Groundnut Scheme a possibility to solve several problems at the same time. The commission also consisted of David Martin, plantation director of the UAC, and the banker John Rosa, who worked for the Colonial Office .
The commission left London on June 20, 1946, stayed in Tanganyika for about nine weeks and examined soils and possible infrastructure measures both in the hinterland of Lindi in the south, near Tabora in the west, and in the region around Dodoma in the center of the country . While the climatic conditions appeared better in the south, in the east of Dodoma there was a region in which peanuts were already grown with obvious success using traditional methods. According to the findings of AL Gladwell, head of a civil engineering company owned by UAC, the costs of clearing and reclaiming the thorn bush steppe were calculated. The removal of the roots in the ground was not included. These observations were used to calculate that approximately 24 million pounds of land totaling approximately 3.25 million acres (13,200 km²) could be prepared for peanut cultivation. These areas should not only be in Tanganyika, but also in Kenya and what was then Northern Rhodesia , later Zambia . The Wakefield Commission submitted its report on September 20, 1946, recommending starting the project in southern Tanganyika.
On May 27, 1946, John Strachey had been appointed Secretary of Food. Strachey was under pressure to have quick wins. He was also influenced by the population theory of Thomas Robert Malthus . Leading colonial officials in Africa believed that current practices would not improve the food situation in the colonies. It therefore seemed urgently necessary to develop new sources of food on a large scale.
Strachey was enthusiastic about the report of the Wakefield Commission and on September 27, 1946 initiated a further examination by appropriate experts. Here, some experts expressed themselves critically both with regard to the required - and in their opinion too low - amount of rainfall in the intended areas, as well as with regard to the large amount of heavy machinery that had to be transported to the site and serviced on site. They recommended starting with a few smaller areas in different areas and using the experience gained in the further course of the project.
After the report was published in February 1947, there was great public enthusiasm for the project; almost 100,000 volunteers, most of them former soldiers from the front, volunteered to take part.
Overseas Food Corporation (OFC) was founded as a state-owned company. Strachey named Leslie Plummer , a longtime party friend, as its chairman . Unilever's UAC was initially commissioned with the implementation of the Groundnut Scheme until the OFC would be able to take over the activities. A project team, led by the South African agronomist Hugh Bunting, was sent out in January 1947 to test the fertility of the soil and found positive results in all of the areas mentioned.
Data on the average amount of precipitation per year were not available for any of the areas mentioned at that time and were only recorded later. However, it could have been noticed - and was known at the time of project planning - that a minimum of 500 mm of rainfall per year is required for successful peanut cultivation, whereas it was clearly known that in the thorn bush savannah - as prevailed east of Dodoma - the average annual rainfall is well below 500 mm (otherwise it would be a wet or dry savannah with completely different vegetation ).
Investigations into possibilities and possible problems with the reclamation of the land were not carried out, only estimates were made in the Ministry in London. The attempt to buy heavy tractors in the USA was unsuccessful because the manufacturers there referred to delivery times of over two years and were not prepared to sell vehicles from current production. Therefore, Unilever agents worldwide were asked to find suitable used machines.
Implementation of the project
Initially tractors and bulldozers were bought in Canada and from stocks of the US Army in the Philippines . This material was shipped to Dar es Salaam. In the meantime, the project managers on site had decided to start the project in the central region near Kongwa, as this was only about 20 km from the existing railway line, which provided a good connection to the port of Dar es Salaam - Tanganyika's only deep-water port . 15 units of 30,000 acres (120 km²) each were to be built here. At the same time, the next expansion stage of the project was prepared in Nachingwea in the south and construction work began on the newly founded town of Mtwara and the new port to be built there. 55 units were to be built here, another 10 units at Urambo near Tabora. First 25,000 local workers were hired, by mid-1949 the maximum number of workers rose to 35,000.
Immediately before the first cargo loads were to be transported to Kongwa, the railroad tracks were destroyed in a flood of the Kinyansungwe and a bridge was torn away, so that until the end of 1947 transport by truck was only possible over a poor road . The water supply over the last twelve kilometers also had to be carried out by truck, as there was no drinking water in the vicinity of the headquarters . The runway from Dar es Salaam to the headquarters led through a ford in the Ruvu , which proved difficult to pass. There were several attacks by crocodiles and also lions on workers who tried to free trucks that were stuck in the ford.
After the first buildings were erected, further supplies stalled because the dock workers in Dar es Salaam went on strike. The first tractors finally reached headquarters two months late. These proved to be insufficiently suitable for clearing the thorn bush thickets. In addition, it turned out that the mighty baobab trees could not be felled with the existing equipment. The residents of the area prevented several trees from being felled as they were important for ceremonies of traditional religions . Many trees were hollow and some housed several beehives , so that numerous workers were injured by bee stings during the tree felling work, some of them seriously. Again, there were repeated attacks by lions and several times by rhinos .
After more and more machines and tractors were operated by - often insufficiently selected and insufficiently trained - local people, the failure rate of the devices rose rapidly. In the autumn of 1947 only a third of the tractors were still operational. Bulldozer shovels used to clear roots only lasted two days. The colonial authorities sent two experts to advise the workers on forming a union . As a result, the local workers also went on strike to push through higher wages and to support the dock workers in Dar es Salaam. After wages were raised, this led to significant regional inflation , the residents of the surrounding villages could no longer pay the increased food prices and a local famine developed.
The project managers then decided to use so-called Shervicks ( M4 Sherman tanks converted into tractors ) for the clearing work . Two Shervicks were connected with a chain and broke aisles in the thorn bush, while another Shervick leveled possibly larger shrubs or smaller trees. In this way, around 16 hectares could be cleared daily. Shipbuilding anchor chains were ordered for delivery to Kongwe in London . There the order was initially canceled because the administrative officials in London could not imagine what anchor chains in the interior of Tanganyika would be used for. This delayed delivery by three months.
Plowing the soil and removing the roots proved extremely difficult. All the plowshares used were found to be unsuitable and were useless within a short time. It was only at this point in time that research began as to which material had been used in a similar situation under these circumstances. It turned out that no equipment was known worldwide that could have been used. As a result, plowing required a lot of material with a considerable amount of work.
The first nuts were planted towards the end of 1947. With the beginning of the rainy season , several workshops and storage buildings in Kongwe were washed away by a steppe river that overflowed its banks. Considerable amounts of seeds were lost in the process. On the cleared terrain, dangerous scorpions could develop particularly well, they became a constant threat to the workers. In the summer of 1948, after the rain had ended, it turned out that the moist clay soil had become hard as concrete in the sun and that the peanuts could therefore only be harvested with great difficulty and with great effort. The project team that had checked the floors was then reprimanded. Bunting, who had meanwhile been appointed chief scientist of the OFC, stated that the test contract had only covered the fertility, not the firmness of the soil.
The Europeans involved in the project in Kongwa became increasingly dissatisfied, as there was no meaningful occupation for many or they were given completely different jobs than the ones they were hired for.
The first summary report of the Ministry of Food in January 1948 nevertheless stated that so far no serious errors had been found in the project execution. Minister Strachey said at a press conference that the whole project was only delayed by a year.
In February 1948 the United Africa Company was withdrawn from managing the project and taken over directly by the Overseas Food Corporation. Few of the OFC employees had any knowledge of agriculture in the tropics. It turned out that the project teams on site had not kept verifiable business books and that the bookkeeping at the headquarters in London was also poor. Numerous documents were missing or incorrectly posted. Minister Strachey nevertheless arranged for the existing books to be continued, which obscured - and in some cases no longer traceable - the responsibility for the retention of considerable project funds between the UAC and the OFC. Major General Desmond Harrison was appointed as the new leader of the project on site and tried to increase productivity with military discipline . This made him unpopular with both workers and British experts. He wrote numerous memoranda , circulars and work instructions until he had to return to Great Britain in the autumn of 1948 due to illness.
The original annual goal of clearing 600 km² was gradually reduced to 200 km², and finally 41 km² was achieved in 1948. In addition, the bed of a dry lake was planted on an area of 80 km² and an insufficiently cleared area of another 45 km². Nevertheless, around 4,000 tons of peanuts had been bought as seeds, of which only a fraction could be sown. Of this, 2,000 tons of peanuts had been harvested by the end of 1949. From the end of 1949 sunflowers were sown in the hope of being able to achieve better yields. In addition, the soil did not have to be leveled and roots removed. However, the rainy season in the winter of 1949/50 was canceled and the seeds dried up in the fields. The first large-scale use of silver iodide to generate artificial rain did nothing to change this. From 3,000 t of sunflower seeds, not even 500 t of harvest could be brought in.
End of the project and consequences
As early as 1949, critical voices had been raised repeatedly, initially criticizing the unclean bookkeeping and the high project costs. The Ministry of Food appeased and published optimistic estimates about the future success of the project, but without pointing out any risks. In July 1949, an opposition proposal in the House of Commons to reduce state subsidies had failed. It was not until the end of 1949, when it became clear that the self-imposed goals could no longer be achieved, that a political discussion began. Bunting publicly criticized the ministry for its published misinformation. Wakefield, who was now a member of the OFC board of directors, publicly criticized OFC board chairman Plummer and the two engaged in a violent exchange of blows in the press. Minister Strachey responded by dismissing Wakefield in January 1950.
When it became known in early 1950 that twice as much seed had been bought as the harvest had been brought in after three years of the project, Strachey became the focus of criticism. He was finally withdrawn from his previous portfolio as part of a cabinet reshuffle by Attlee and transferred to the War Ministry as State Secretary . Plummer resigned as chairman of the board in May 1950. After Strachey's successor Maurice Webb had tried unsuccessfully in the subsequent parliamentary debate to stand up for Plummer's honor, Webb did not publicly admit mistakes on the part of those involved until July 1950.
In January 1951, the cabinet decided to discontinue the Groundnut Scheme, and a few days later the lower house with the votes of almost all MPs.
A total of 37 million pounds of direct project money had been spent, plus a further twelve million pounds that had been declared as infrastructure measures for the Tanganyika colony and essentially the construction of the port and airport of Mtwara , road construction in the hinterland of Lindi, the expansion of railways and Road links along the Central Railway included the construction of a narrow-gauge railway in the Southern Province, the Southern Province Railway , the construction of warehouses and office buildings in Dar es Salaam, and the establishment of airstrips in the bush. Only a small fraction of these facilities made economic sense without the Groundnut Scheme or were still used, so that the costs actually have to be added to the project. According to today's (2013) purchasing power, this corresponds to a total of around 1,666,000,000 euros.
An investigative commission from the British government found that two main reasons were responsible for the failure: firstly, the incorrect selection of the terrain to be worked on, secondly, the lack of corrective and control mechanisms that could have given early indications of problems. In the years that followed, numerous scientific studies were published on the reasons for the failure, and to this day the Groundnuts Scheme is cited as a deterrent example of failed large-scale agricultural projects. There was no positive influence on the economy in Tanganyika, the hoped-for effect as a development aid measure did not materialize.
The Colonial Office continued the project in the area near Kongwa under the new name Investigation of the economics of clearing and mechanized agriculture under tropical conditions ; at Urambo and Nachingwea, tobacco plantations were also planted in the cleared area. All follow-up projects turned out to be unprofitable. The implementation was still coordinated by the OFC until 1954, this was dissolved in 1954 and the remains were transferred to the newly founded Tanganyika Agricultural Corporation (TAC). This stopped the work and sold the remaining machines and buildings.
Others
Since the general term peanuts in English has a pejorative connotation (something of low value), the agricultural term groundnuts was chosen from the beginning in all public statements on the project . Both names refer to the same thing.
Individual evidence
- ^ Kelemen, Paul: Modernizing colonialism: The British Labor movement and Africa. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 34 (2), 2006.
- ^ A b Samuel, Frank: The East African Groundnuts Scheme; African Affairs , London 1947, pp. 135-145.
- ↑ Wood, Alan: The Groundnut Affair. The Bodley Head, London 1950 p. 32.
- ^ A b c Watkins, Th .: The Tanganyikan Groundnuts Scheme
- ↑ Wood, A .: The Groundnut Affair p. 34.
- ^ Wood, A .: The Groundnut Affair, p. 41.
- ^ Report by Sir Philip Mitchell , Governor of Kenya, to the Colonial Office : "Primary production by African peasants is already on the decline. Populations working under that system are going to find it increasingly difficult in supporting themselves at their present level. "Quoted from Wood, A .: The Groundnut Affair, p. 42.
- ↑ Wood, A .: The Groundnut Affair, pp. 48 f.
- ^ A Plan for the Mechanized Production of Groundnuts in East and Central Africa, HMSO, Cmd. 7030.
- ^ Penrose, ET: A great African project, Scientific Monthly , April 1948, pp. 322-6
- ^ Wood, A .: The Groundnut Affair, p. 44.
- ↑ Bunting wrote in his report: Actual rainfall figures for the area are entirely lacking ...
- ↑ In the language of the Wagogo resident in the region, the area around Kongwa was called "The Land of Persistent Drought"; quoted after John Iliffe : A Modern History of Tanganyika , Cambridge, 1979 p. 442
- ^ Wood, A .: The Groundnut Affair, p. 54.
- ^ Wood, A. The Groundnut Affair, p. 56.
- ^ Furse, Sir Ralph: Aucuparius: Recollections of a Recruiting Officer , Oxford University Press, 1962 p. 304
- ^ Wood, A .: The Groundnut Affair, p. 87.
- ↑ a b Kassam, Amir: Professor Hugh Bunting; outspoken agricultural scientist . In: The Independent, London , Aug. 19, 2002.
- ^ AH Bunting: Agricultural Research in the Groundnut Scheme , 1947-51, Nature 168 (4280), pp. 804-806 (1951)
- ↑ Literally it says: There is no ... reason ... to doubt that the whole scheme - modified here and there as to its details - can be carried out on the broad lines and within the time schedule set out. Cmd. 7314, HMSO, London 1948
- ↑ Davies, DA: Artificial Stimulation of Rain at Kongwa Nature 167, 614 (April 14, 1951)
- ^ Nuts - The Great Fiasco, headline of the Daily Mail on Nov. 10, 1949.
- ↑ Groundnuts on the Rocks, Time Magazine Nov. 14, 1949.
- ↑ Parliament; The Times (London) Jul 28, 1949.
- ^ Groundnut Plan Statements, The Times , Nov. 21, 1949.
- ^ Responsibility For Groundnuts, The Times Nov. 21, 1949.
- ^ Inquiry Into Groundnuts Refused, The Times , Nov. 22, 1949.
- ^ "House Of Commons" The Times , Dec. 14, 1949.
- ↑ Sir Gerald Kaufman , MP commented, "The Daily Express what deterministic mined to bring him [Strachey] down and in the end, They got him. ' Zit. according to Is other house as fair as Big Brother , The Journal (Newcastle, England), 20 Jan 2006.
- ↑ Attlee pays to the left, Time Magazine Jan. 29, 1951 The unnamed commentator says: There was no reason to believe that Strachey would be any better at getting guns than he had been at getting margarine.
- ↑ Sir L. Plummer To Resign, The Times May 25, 1950.
- ↑ Comments on the change, The Times May 25, 1950, citing Webb: The Overseas Food Corporation has changed fundamentally in practice compared with the basis on which Plummer had accepted. This involuntary admission led, as the Times continues, to The biggest cheer from the Opposition benches that has been heard in the House of Commons for a long time.
- ↑ a b […] the scheme had been pushed forward at breakneck speed and the methods used had not been adequately tested. quoted Adapted from Cavendish, Richard: Britain abandons the groundnuts scheme, in History Today , Jan. 1, 2001.
- ↑ Kaplan, Irving: Countries of the world, 1991, Chapter 1 D, Tanganyika and Zanzibar .
- ^ The dome: a chamber of spending horrors. Sunday Business (London) , Jan. 7, 2001.
- ^ Dyson, Freeman J .: Technology and Social Justice ( Memento of August 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Frankel, S. Herbert: The Kongwa experiment: Lessons of the East African groundnut scheme, in: The Economic impact of Under-developed Societies , Cambridge, MA., 1953
- ↑ Tombs, Michael: Biotechnology of Plant Fats and Oils, Chemistry and Industry Apr. 6, 1992.
- ^ Waters, Tony: The Persistence of Subsistence and the Limits to Development Studies - the Challenge of Tanzania; Africa 22 Sep 2000.
- ^ Rizzo, Mateo: What Was Left of the Groundnut Scheme? Development Disaster and Labor Market in Southern Tanganyika 1946–1952 Journal of Agrarian Change 6 (2) p. 205 April 2006
