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ABSTRACT
This article explores the development of small grains (sorghum, millet, and rapoko) production and marketing in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) over the colonial era from 1890 to the 1970s. Using primary archival and secondary sources, it examines how different factors, including the advent of white settler capitalist agriculture and shifting global food trends, shaped small grains production and marketing over varying economic, environmental, and political periods in the colony. During the early years following settler encroachment in 1890, African producers dominated grain production. Colonial agricultural capital, aiming to establish a monopoly in agriculture, passed various repressive laws to unseat African producers from this position of dominance, shaping the trajectory of small grains development into the future. Revisiting seminal historiography debates on the underdevelopment of the African peasantry, this article argues that small grains show the ways in which African farmers exercised agency in response to the vacillating attitudes towards African agriculture by different colonial authorities over time. This history of small grain offers an appreciation of the different survival strategies Africans used during the colonial period in Zimbabwe to achieve ‘small gains’.
Acknowledgements
I am eternally grateful to Prof Sandra Swart, my PhD supervisor, for her inimitable guidance and support. I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of the History Friday Morning Dragons, the History Department at Stellenbosch University, the delegates at the 27th Biennial Southern Africa Historical Society Conference as well as the anonymous reviewers. This article benefited much from your insightful comments and valuable feedback.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 National Archives of Zimbabwe (hereafter NAZ), Chief Native Commissioner of Matabeleland Annual Report, 1918, 4.
2 Report of the Director of Agriculture Dr Eric Nobbs, quoted in V. Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture in Southern Rhodesia with Particular Reference to the Role of the State: 1980–1939’ (PhD thesis, University of London, London, 1980), 131.
3 J.A. Groenewald, ‘Agricultural and Food Policy’, Africa Insight, 11, 2 (1981), 115.
4 I. Phimister, An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe, 1890–1948: Capital Accumulation and Class Struggle (London: Longman, 1988), 21. See also H. Weinmann, ‘Agricultural Development in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1924’, Department of Agriculture Occasional Paper 4 (1972), 45–50; M.G.B. Rooney, ‘European Agriculture in the History of Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1907’ (Master’s dissertation, University of South Africa, Pretoria, 1968), 60–61.
5 NAZ, Small grain Federal Archive F 226 /1090/F 5, European Agricultural Report 1951, 32. By the outbreak of the Great Depression, these industries were producing more than double in Southern Rhodesia than in the British colonies of Kenya, Malawi, or Northern Rhodesia.
6 H. Weinmann, ‘Agricultural Research and Development in Southern Rhodesia, 1924–1950’, University of Rhodesia Series in Science, 2 (1975), 17, 42, 93, 141.
7 Native development was in the form of different legislative moves such as the Maize Control Act (1931) and Native Production and Markets Act from 1935 onwards. Also see Machingaidze, ‘Agrarian change from above'.
8 L. Khumalo, ‘The Development of the Small Grain Industry in Southern Rhodesia, 1923–1963’ (BA Honours dissertation, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, 2015), 19–21.
9 I here borrow the title of M. Yudelman’s influential book Africans on the Land: Economic Problems of Africa Agricultural Development in Southern Central and East Africa with Special Reference to Southern Rhodesia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964).
10 E. Doro, ‘A Socio-Environmental History of Commercial Tobacco Farming in Southern Rhodesia and Zimbabwe, 1893–2000’ (PhD thesis, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, 2020). Doro coins the idea of ‘crop hegemonies’ based on the concept of ‘three pillars’ of economic development – tobacco, maize, and dairy – in settler agrarian development in Southern Rhodesia. This hypothesis postulates the overemphasis of one crop over others in agrarian development by both colonial authorities and African peasant farmers. Importantly, ‘crop hegemonies’ within southern Africa focus on profit margins and are concerned with sales and labourers’ wages, to the detriment of land conservation, labour welfare, and sustainable agriculture. See also R. Palmer, ‘The Agricultural History of Rhodesia’, in R. Palmer and N. Parsons, eds, The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977).
11 Much of the foundational agrarian history of the African peasantry has focused on the economic aspect; more recently the literature has engaged the social and environmental aspects. For work that grappled with the economic aspects of agrarian history, see Yudelman, Africans on the Land; Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’; P. Mosley, The Settler Economies: Studies in the Economic History of Kenya and Southern Rhodesia 1900–1963 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); and A. Shutt, ‘“We are the Best Poor Farmers”: Purchase Area Farmers and Economic Differentiation in Southern Rhodesia, c.1925–1980’ (PhD thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1995). Scholars who focused on the social dimensions of colonial agrarian development include K. Manungo, ‘The Role Peasants Played in the Zimbabwe War of Liberation, with Special Emphasis on Chiweshe District’ (PhD thesis, Ohio University, Athens, OH, 1991); and R. Palmer and I. Birch, Zimbabwe: A Land Divided (Oxford: Oxfam, 1992). For studies that examined environmental issues, see J.A. Elliot, ‘Soil Erosion and Conservation in Zimbabwe’ (PhD thesis, Loughborough University of Technology, Loughborough, 1989); Simeon Maravanyika, ‘Soil Conservation and White Agrarian Environment in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1908–1980’ (PhD thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 2013); J. McGregor, ‘Conservation, Control and Ecological Change: The Politics and Ecology of Colonial Conservation in Shurugwi, Zimbabwe’, Environment and History, 1, 3 (1995), 257–279; and Doro, ‘A Socio-Environmental History’.
12 Parsons, Palmer, Phimister, Machingaidze, and Eira Punt (discussed below) all analyse how white settlers instituted measures like the Marketing Boards to curtail and control the presence and dominance of African producers in various agricultural sectors, including tobacco, maize, wheat, and cotton. Under the guise of quality control, African agriculture was poorly financed and excluded from the most lucrative markets, leading to further reduction in productivity and crop quality.
13 E. Green, ‘Indirect Rule and Colonial Intervention: Chiefs and Agrarian Change in Nyasaland, c.1933 to the early 1950s’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 44, 2 (2011), 249–274.
14 G.M. Odlum, Agricultural and Pastoral Rhodesia (London: British South Africa Company, 1909); L.H. Gann, A History of Southern Rhodesia: Early Days to 1934 (London: Chatto and Windus, 1965); and E.D. Alvord, ‘Agricultural Life of the Rhodesian Natives’, Native Department Annuals, 7 (1929), 9–16.
15 A great deal of agrarian literature on Southern Rhodesia focuses on settler production. The few works that integrate the African peasant into the historiographical narrative generally pay examine their involvement in white settler cash-crop production. See I.R. Phimister, ‘Peasant Production and Underdevelopment in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1914’, African Affairs, 73, 291 (1974), 217–228.
16 National Research Council, Lost Crops of Africa: Grains (Washington: Board on Science and Technology for International Development National Academies Press, 1996), vi; and J.S. Dube and D.J. Magava, ‘Sorghum and Millet as Animal Feeds in Zimbabwe’, Zimbabwe Agriculture Journal, 84, 1 (1987), 6–7.
17 H. Kuper, A.J.B. Hughes and J. van Velsen, The Shona and Ndebele of Southern Rhodesia (London: Routledge, 2017), 57.
18 T. Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing of Grain Crops in Zimbabwe, 1890–1986: An Overview’, Henderson Seminar Paper, 72 (1987), 3.
19 K.P. Vickery, ‘Saving Settlers: Maize Control in Northern Rhodesia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 11, 2 (1985), 216.
20 E.K. Makombe, ‘Agricultural Commodity Pricing Policy in Colonial Zimbabwe with Particular Reference to the Settler Maize Industry, 1950–1980’ (Master’s dissertation, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, 2005), 10.
21 W. Beinart and L. Wotshela, Prickly Pear: The Social History of a Plant in the Eastern Cape (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2011), 5–7.
22 Personal communication with Thembani Dube, historian on the Kalanga people of Zimbabwe, November 2019. Also see R. Hall and W.G. Neal, The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia (Monomotapae Imperium) (London: Methuen, 1904), 156–157.
23 H. Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 141. The work of these departments was to ascertain which crops and production methods the colonial state might effectively employ for the development of the colony.
24 Ibid., 141–142.
25 C. Bundy, The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 65–108.
26 F. Masuku, ‘A Study of Agricultural Change in the Ntabazinduna Reserve, with Particular Reference to the Colonial Period 1923–1939’ (Master’s dissertation, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 1989), 27; L.L. Bessant, ‘Coercive Development: Peasant Economy, Politics and Land in the Chiweshe Reserve, Colonial Zimbabwe, 1940–1966’ (PhD thesis, Yale University, New Haven, 1987). The period between 1924 to 1939 witnessed a reshaping of labour and commodity dynamics owing to the shifting global economic climate. At the same time there was an influx in rural-to-urban migration by African labour, triggering increased domestic grain consumption that remodelled the dynamics within crop acreage in both African and setter areas. Also see W. Mwatwara, ‘“Running Twice as Fast while Remaining in the Same Position”: Settler Wheat Production in Southern Rhodesia, c.1928–1965’, Historia, 58, 1 (2013), 192–193.
27 Bessant, ‘Coercive Development’, ii.
28 A.K.H. Weinrich, African Farmers in Rhodesia: Old and New Peasant Communities in Karangaland (London: Oxford University Press, 1975); and E. Punt, ‘The Development of African Agriculture in Southern Rhodesia with Particular Reference to the Interwar Years’ (Master’s thesis, University of Natal, Durban, 1979), 1–2. Also see W. Chambati and S. Moyo, Land Reform and the Political Economy of Agricultural Labour (Harare: African Institute for Agrarian Studies, 2004).
29 E. Kramer, ‘The Early Years: Extension Services in Peasant Agriculture in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1925–1929’, Zambezia, 24, 2 (1997), 159–198. It must be however noted how the developments to the colony by white settler colonialism were by and large incidental and thus must not be overstated especially in light of their adverse impacts to the condition of the African peasant. Also see W. Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London: Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1973).
30 V. Machingaidze, ‘Agrarian Change from Above: The Southern Rhodesia Native Land Husbandry Act and African Response’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 24, 3 (1991), 565.
31 A. Mseba, ‘Law, Expertise, and Settler Conflicts over Land in Early Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890–1923’, Environment and Planning A, 48, 4 (2016), 665–680.
32 T. Ranger, Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe: A Comparative Study (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 284.
33 Ibid.
34 G. Hove, ‘The State, Farmers and Dairy Farming in Colonial Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia), c.1980–1951’ (PhD thesis, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, 2015); W. Mwatwara, ‘A History of State Veterinary Services and African Livestock Regimes in Colonial Zimbabwe, c.1896–1980’ (PhD thesis, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, 2014); M. Blackie, ‘Case Study: The Zimbabwe Cotton Marketing Board’, Department of Land Management Working Paper, 2/83 (1983); and T. Taringana, Agrarian Capitalism and the Development of the Coffee Industry in Colonial Zimbabwe (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2018).
35 Alvord, ‘Agricultural Life of the Rhodesian Natives’, 9–16. Alvord pointed out how the ‘yields from natives farming are deplorably low being only 2.2 bags per acre’ [sic] and the population ‘will provide about 3.2 bags per person yearly. It is estimated however that more than 300,000 bags of grain are sold annually by the natives’.
36 The Countryside (October 1928), 45, in Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’, 438. This argument suggests that European agriculture was more conservative of the environment.
37 Phimister, ‘Peasant Production and Underdevelopment’, 217.
38 H.N. Hemans, The Log of a Native Commissioner: A Record of Work and Sport in the Southern Rhodesia (London: H.F. and G. Witherby, 1971), 17. In many parts of the country, religious ceremonies such as rainmaking rituals were also seen as contributing to the bountiful agricultural harvests achieved by African farmers. See W. Bozongwana, Ndebele Religion and Customs (Gweru: Mambo Press, 1983), 34.
39 Yudelman, Africans on the Land, 157–158.
40 Rooney, ‘European Agriculture in the History’, 71.
41 NAZ, ZBJ1/1/1 Native Production and Trade Commission June 1944, Correspondence to Council by D. E. McLoughlin.
42 Punt, ‘The Development of African Agriculture’, 12.
43 Ibid.
44 Rooney, ‘European Agriculture in the History’, 61.
45 NAZ, ZBJ1/1/1 Notes on Native Production and Trade Commission presented to Council by LT. Tracey, June 1944.
46 Kuper, Hughes, and van Velsen, The Shona and Ndebele of Southern Rhodesia, 57.
47 Kramer, ‘The Early Years’, 162–165.
48 ‘African Production – Other Grains’, Rhodesia Agricultural Journal (1916), 1001–1003.
49 B. Tavuyanago, N. Mutami, and K. Mbenene, ‘Traditional Grain Crops in Pre-Colonial Zimbabwe: A Factor for Food Security and Social Cohesion and the Shona People’, Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa, 12, 6 (2010), 1–8.
50 Phimister, ‘Peasant Production and Underdevelopment’, 219–220.
51 J.P. Fitzpatrick, Through Mashonaland with Pick and Pen, edited and introduced by A. P Cartwright (Johannesburg: A.D. Jonker, 1973), 45.
52 Phimister, ‘Peasant Production and Underdevelopment’, 220.
53 F.C. Selous, Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa (Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1965), 344.
54 NAZ, Southern Rhodesia Agriculture, BSAC Directors Report and Accounts for Southern Rhodesia, 31 March 1907, 32. This assessment was based on the production of small grains and cattle industry and not the ‘three pillars’ of the agriculture economy.
55 Gann, A History of Southern Rhodesia, 316.
56 Weinmann, ‘Agricultural Research and Development’, 143–144.
57 H.C. Thomson, Rhodesia and its Government (London: Smith, Elder and Co, 1989), 62. Early BSAC legislators remained haunted by the memory of the Anglo–Ndebele war and First Chimurenga of 1885–1887 and were motivated into developing the colony through largely financial backing and agricultural education which steered them towards taking the risk in trying new methods without being handicapped by poverty and the shackles of tradition.
58 NAZ, S1215/1202/1, Report of the Director of Agriculture, 1911, 9. This coincided with the appointment of Eric Nobbs to the position of Director of Agriculture. His appointment led to a reorganisation of the department and the improvement of the efficiency of its administration and the scientific activities it developed to improve white settler production systems.
59 Ibid.
60 Weinmann, ‘Agricultural Research and Development’, 76, 58, 109. Livestock owned by European farmers increased from 11,948 in 1900 to 164,167 in 1911. This translated into massive demand for small grains as fodder, with yield gradually increasing from three to at least five bags per acre per annum.
61 Report of the Director of Agriculture Dr Eric Nobbs quoted in Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’, 442.
62 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 3.
63 J.A.T. Walters, ‘New Crops for Rhodesia: Report on the Experimental Work Conducted during 1915–16’, Rhodesian Agricultural Journal, 9 (1911), 626–639.
64 Masuku, ‘A Study of Agricultural Change’, 27–28. By this time, maize gradually receiving considerable attention amongst settlers as both food and livestock feed, more so aimed at unseating African small grain monopoly.
65 ‘The Agricultural Shows’, The Rhodesian Agricultural Journal, 2, 1 (1905), 1. The Agriculture Department noted how the western districts could justly pride themselves on their grain, root crop and tobacco harvests, with a vivid enthusiasm for fruit growing across the country.
66 NAZ, GI/14, G.M. Odlum, Agricultural and pastoral Rhodesia, 1906, 5.
67 NAZ Oral /F1, Sir Patrick Fletcher Account No 94. During this period, African mine workers were the greatest market for grain, with wage employment on the mines leading to their reliance on purchased grain.
68 Ibid., 135.
69 ‘Sample survey of African agriculture’, Rhodesian Agricultural Journal, 52 (1947), 76–93. Tredgold believed that the free flow of African farmers restricts the supply of labour and increases the land utilised, which would otherwise be developed by white settlers. He also saw the free flow to contribute to the absence of due control over African farmers.
70 NAZ 1095/01/S2, Report of the Director of Agriculture, Dr Nobbs, 1910, 4.
71 Weinmann, ‘Agricultural Research and Development’, 19–20.
72 R. Cherer-Smith, The Story of Maize and the Farmers' Co-op Ltd (Salisbury: Farmers' Co-op Ltd, 1979), viii.
73 Vickery, ‘Saving Settlers’, 216.
74 NAZ, S1215/1202/1, Report of the Secretary for Native Affairs, Chief Native Commissioner and Director of Native Development, 1953.
75 NAZ, S1215/1202/1, Abridged Report of the Director of Agriculture, 1913–1920.
76 Masuku, ‘A Study of Agricultural Change’, 21–22.
77 Kramer, ‘The Early Years’.
78 NAZ, Oral/PA 1, Eric Palmer Trestrail Account No. 12. This project was pioneered in 1911 but only took shape in Domboshava and Tsholotsho districts in 1924.
79 P.H. Moyo, ‘Native Life in the Reserves’, Native Department Annuals, (1927), 47–51.
80 Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’, 408.
81 NAZ ZBJ1/1/1, Native Production and Trade Commission June 1944. Correspondence to Council by E.D. Alvord.
82 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 10.
83 Moyo, ‘Native Life in the Reserves’, 52.
84 Ibid.
85 NAZ, ZBJ1/1/1, Native Production and Trade Commission Kamdeya, Member of Wedza Native Council.
86 NAZ, European Activities in Southern Rhodesia, Report on European Farming in Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland August 1927.
87 Ibid. See also Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’, 409.
88 NAZ, S 1829/11, Report of the Director of Agriculture, Dr Nobbs, 1910, 4.
89 ‘“Maize Levy”, the Case of the Producer’, The Countryside (July 1928), 18.
90 V. Machingaidze, ‘Company Rule and Agricultural Development: The Case of the BSA Company in Southern Rhodesia, 1908–1923’, University of Rhodesia Henderson Seminar, 43 (1979), 3–4.
91 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 14–16.
92 Vickery, ‘Saving Settlers’, 218.
93 Ibid.
94 Weinmann, ‘Agricultural Research and Development’, 81.
95 NAZ, Southern Rhodesia Agriculture, European Activities in Southern Rhodesia, Report on European Farming in Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland August 1927.
96 Punt, ‘The Development of African Agriculture’, 37.
97 C. Mbwanda and D.D. Rohrbach, ‘Small Grain Markets in Zimbabwe: The Food Security Implications of National Market Policy’, in G. Madimu and H. Bernsten, eds, Household and National Food Security in Southern Africa: Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Conference on Food Security Research in Southern Africa, October 31–November 3, 1988 (Harare: Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, University of Zimbabwe, 1989), 125–144.
98 Punt, ‘The Development of African Agriculture’, 39.
99 Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’, 410.
100 Ibid. The Maize Control Act established a Maize Board that controlled the flow of grain, instituted a grading system, and provided financing options, all skewed in favour of white farmers.
101 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 14.
102 Ibid.
103 Ibid., 21–22.
104 Punt, ‘The Development of African Agriculture’, 50.
105 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 10.
106 N. Wright and T. Takavarasha, ‘The Evolution of Agricultural Pricing Policies in Zimbabwe: 1970s and 1980s’, Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension Working Paper AEE, 4/89 (May 1989), 1.
107 Ibid., 1.
108 Machingaidze, ‘The Development of Settler Capitalist Agriculture’, 503.
109 A. Mseba, ‘Land, Power and Social Relations in North-Eastern Zimbabwe from Precolonial Times to the 1950s’ (PhD thesis, University of Iowa, Iowa City, 2015), 255.
110 Ibid., 254–255.
111 Hemans, The Log of a Native Commissioner, 21.
112 Ibid.
113 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 19.
114 T. Madimu, ‘Farmers, Miners and the State in Colonial Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia), c.1895–1961’ (PhD thesis, Stellenbosch University, 2017), 116–121.
115 Bessant, ‘Coercive Development’, 11.
116 Ibid., 11–12.
117 C. Barret, ‘Smallholder Market Participation: Concepts and Evidence from Eastern and Southern Africa’, Food Policy, 33 (2008), 299–317.
118 M. Rukuni, ‘The Evolution of Agricultural Policy: 1890 to 1990’, in M. Rukuni et al., eds, Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Revolution Revisited (Harare, University of Zimbabwe Publications, 2006), 46.
119 Ibid.
120 Wright and Takavarasha, ‘The Evolution of Agricultural Pricing Policies’, 112.
121 NAZ ZBJ1/1/1, E.R. Jackling.
122 NAZ ZBJ1/1/1, Commission of Inquiry into Southern Rhodesian Maize Industry Report, 1930.
123 Machingaidze, ‘Company Rule and Agricultural Development’, 6. The only avenue open for Africans to finance their agriculture prior to 1945 was through the sale of their cattle, labour or crops or through borrowing from lending agencies whose charges were often exorbitant.
124 NAZ Oral /F1 Sir Patrick Fletcher Account No 94.
125 D. Jeater, ‘African Women in Colonial Settler Towns in East and Southern Africa’, Oxford Research Encyclopaedia, African History, (Oxford University Press, 2020), 13–14.
126 Ibid.
127 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 21.
128 NAZ, Maize Control 1934, Annual Report of the Maize Control Board, 1933/4.
129 I. Phimister, ‘Peasant Production and Underdevelopment in Southern Rhodesia’, in Robin Palmer and Neil Parsons, eds, The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa (London: Heinemann, 1977), 225–267.
130 Ibid.
131 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 20.
132 Ibid.
133 Ibid., 21.
134 Ibid.
135 NAZ ZBJ1/1/1, W. H. Nicolle.
136 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 21.
137 K. Murwira et al., Beating Hunger, The Chivi Experience: A Community Based Approach to Food Security in Zimbabwe (London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 2000), 16–25.
138 Madimu and Bernsten, Household and National Food, 23. They further argue that it was the desire of most communal farmers to resettle in the Purchase areas for better economic opportunities from their agriculture and also as a show of social prosperity. Lack of credit facilities too attributed towards the inability by peasants to increase their productivity.
139 I. Spencer, ‘Settler Dominance, Agricultural Production and the Second World War in Kenya’, Journal of African History, 21 (1980), 497–514.
140 ‘Agricultural life of Rhodesian Natives’, Native Department Annual (1949), 52.
141 Ibid.
142 Bessant, ‘Coercive Development’, 15.
143 Ibid.
144 Ibid.
145 Native Commissioner reports for Somabula District, Gwayi and Sanyati for the years 1951, 1953 and 1954, respectively.
146 Mbwanda and Rohrbach, ‘Small Grain Markets in Zimbabwe’, 136.
147 Ibid.
148 Hemans, The Log of a Native Commissioner, 43.
149 Agriculture Quarterly Journal, 10 (1960–1976).
150 Department of Agriculture, Report on European agriculture by Council, 1968–1971.
151 M. Meredith, The Past is Another Country: Rhodesia 1890–1979 (Norfolk: Andre Deutsch, 1979), 89–91.
152 Punt, ‘The Development of African Agriculture’, 145–147.
153 N. Chimhete, ‘The African Alcohol Industry in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, 1945 to 1980’ (Master’s dissertation, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, 2004), 32–36. Also see K. Taruza, ‘Rufaro Marketing in Colonial Salisbury’ (BA Honours dissertation, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, 2013), 15–19.
154 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 9. Ingwebu Breweries was formed in Bulalwayo in 1946, Chibuku in Zambia in the 1960s. By 1970, they were Zimbabwe’s top opaque beer brands. In 1967, the former began operating under what was known as the ‘Durban system’, establishing a monopoly over the production and sale of sorghum and millet beer in municipality owned beer halls located in the townships in both Southern and Northern Rhodesia. The colonial state viewed the high consumption of opaque beer by Africans as a mixed blessing. While beer provided an affordable means of entertainment, the state considered it to waste productive work time, interfere with gainful employment, and stifle economic development. During the liberation struggle in the 1970s, however, the state used beer halls to infiltrate the African liberation fight and discover the plans being developed against the regime. Chimhete argues that the colonial state maintained the presence of beerhalls because these facilitated the spread of ‘poverty which crippled the war efforts of the Africans’, hives of sexual immorality that pass on sexually infectious diseases. Also see Taruza, ‘Rufaro Marketing in Colonial Salisbury’.
155 A. Akinyoade et al., Sorghum Value Chain in Nigeria: A Comparative Study (Leiden: African Studies Centre, 2020), 1.
156 Chimhete, ‘The African Alcohol Industry in Salisbury’, 32–36.
157 Khumalo, ‘The Development of the Small Grain Industry’, 17.
158 Ibid., 19–21.
159 Taruza, ‘Rufaro Marketing in Colonial Salisbury’, 38–39.
160 Khumalo, ‘The Development of the Small Grain Industry’, 17. Other than millet and rapoko, sorghum was considered to have higher economic and social utility and value amongst ranching and poultry settler farmers; hence the move to only control sorghum.
161 NAZ, FG4 1962, Commission of inquiry into the maize and small grain industry of Southern and Northern Rhodesia, Vol 83, 1962, 39.
162 NAZ, Report of the Sec for Native Affairs, CNC and Director of Native Development, 1956, ‘Commission of inquiry into the maize and small grain industry of Southern and Northern Rhodesia, 83, 1962, 39.
163 S/ZIM 018, Rhodesian Agricultural Journal, 52, 1955.
164 NAZ, 1090/F5, Munga and kaffir corn, Report of the Secretary for Native Affairs, CNC and Director of Native Development, 1956.
165 NAZ F 226/ 1090 A, Federal Grain Marketing Federal Archives, Memorandum from Native Production and Marketing Branch to Commercial Manager Grain Marketing Board. 17 July 1959.
166 Ibid.
167 NAZ, S2529, A65, Report of marketing cost by Committee of Grain Marketing Board, 16 December 1963. This legislation was directed at grains in general, not small grains specifically. The new bags cost more and were made from synthetic fibres as opposed to tree barks fibres. The correspondence suggests that this move was inspired by desire to unseat the monopoly which the Mozambique Trading and Plantation Company held in the supply of bark bags to Southern Rhodesia.
168 Chimhete, ‘The African Alcohol Industry in Salisbury’, 46–50.
169 NAZ Agriculture Economics and Markets Reports 1950–1980.
170 ‘Farmers Lack Confidence about the Future’, The Chronicle, 7 June 1980.
171 NAZ, F226/1090/F4, Mhunga and Sorghum, Small Grains, 1961–1964, Report of the Grain Marketing Board presented to the Native Department.
172 Interview with Nkosana Maphosa, Agricultural Marketing Authority Sales Manager, Harare, 12 November 2018.
173 NAZ, FG4 1962, ‘Commission of inquiry into the maize and small grain industry of Southern and Northern Rhodesia’. By the mid-1950, certain GMB personnel practiced insider trading, buying from peasant farmers and selling off the grain to breweries or being intermediaries in foreign exports of grains to countries such as the Union of South Africa and Northern Rhodesia who needed small grains but did not have any extensive local production.
174 Taruza, ‘Rufaro Marketing in Colonial Salisbury’, 29.
175 Ibid. In previous cases of successful trading, more flexible contractual agreements with breweries were established. Farmers’ dues were paid within a shorter period of time as compared to the contracts entered into with grain millers.
176 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 29.
177 Wright and Takavarasha, ‘The Evolution of Agricultural Pricing Policies’, 6–8.
178 ‘Farming Policy under Review’, The Chronicle, 25 June 1974.
179 Makombe, ‘Agricultural Commodity Pricing Policy’, 87.
180 Ibid. It must be noted too that it was not uncommon that farmers did not have relevant identification particulars or paperwork to allow them formally to receive payments from the GMB.
181 E. Makaudze, ‘A Supply Forecasting Model for Zimbabwe’s Corn Sector: A Time Series and Structural Analysis’ (Master’s thesis, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 1993), 34.
182 Ibid.
183 Compiled using information from various sources on grain production and the marketing cycle, including interviews with local farmers in Matobo, Nkayi, and Mberengwa districts.
184 Prices were calculated based on the existing reserves in the national silos plus calculations of the demand from the previous year. The Herald of September 1991 records how several farmers experienced recurring loses from their grain sales as the prices did not factor in year-on-year inflation and shift in patterns between and throughout the planting and harvesting periods.
185 ‘Economics and Markets Report January–June 1973’, Rhodesia Agricultural Journal (1974),67.
186 Ncube, ‘Peasant Production and Marketing’, 3.
187 E. Makaudze, D.A. Bessler, and S.W. Fuller, ‘A Time-Series Analysis of Zimbabwe’s Corn Sales to the Grain Marketing Board’, Development Southern Africa, 15, 3 (1998), 413–414.
188 NAZ ZBJ1/1/1, Native Production and Trade Commission note by Commission.
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Notes on contributors
Bryan Umaru Kauma
Bryan Umaru Kauma is a PhD Candidate with Stellenbosch University History Department. He is currently working on his thesis titled ‘A Social, Economic and Environmental History of Small Grains in Zimbabwe, from the precolonial past to present’. This work is inspired by a desire to contribute to the ongoing conversations on African peasantry in agrarian historiography. He aims to provide a voice on African agrarian systems and culture which have for many years been side-lined in historical narratives. His research interests include peasantry and agrarian studies, food security and the social and environmental history of Zimbabwe.