A history of tobacco production and marketing in Malawi, 1890–2010

Abstract

During the past century tobacco production and marketing in Nyasaland/Malawi has undergone periods of dynamism similar to changes since the early 1990s. This article highlights three recurrent patterns. First, estate owners have fostered or constrained peasant/smallholder production dependent on complementarities or competition with estates. Second, the rapid expansion of peasant/smallholder production has led to large multiplier effects in tobacco-rich districts. Third, such expansion has also led to re-regulation of the marketing of peasant/smallholder tobacco by the (colonial) state. The article concludes by assessing whether recent changes in the industry – such as district markets, contract farming with smallholders, and the importance of credence factors – have historical precedents, or are new developments in the industry.

Keywords:

• Malawi
• tobacco
• peasants/smallholders
• history

Acknowledgements

The author thanks numerous anonymous reviewers, the journal Editors, Colin Murray, Phil Woodhouse, Jane Harrigan, Admos Chimhowu, Pius Nyambara, Joseph Mtisi and Christopher Phiri for comments on previous versions of this article. Any inaccuracies or misinterpretations are solely the responsibility of the author.

Notes

1. Van Donge, “Disordering the Market”; Tobin and Knausenberger, “Dilemmas of Development.”

2. Goodman, Tobacco in History.

3. Akehurst, Tobacco.

4. In colonial times communal land was referred to as crown land or trust land. I solely use the term ‘customary land’. The terms ‘smallholder’ and ‘peasant’ are used interchangeably.

5. McCracken, “Peasants, Planters and the Colonial State: Case of Malawi.”

6. Vail, “State and the Creation”; Vaughan, Story of an African Famine; McCracken, “Peasants, Planters and the Colonial State: Case of Malawi”; McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board”; Andersson, “Informal Moves, Informal Markets.”

7. McCracken, “Peasants, Planters and the Colonial State: Case of Malawi,” 22.

8. Andersson, “Informal Moves, Informal Markets.”

9. Goodman, Tobacco in History, 193.

10. Ortiz quoted in ibid., 166.

11. Ortiz quoted in ibid., 166.

12. Ortiz quoted in ibid., 166.

13. Baker, Nyasaland, 15.

14. Baker, Nyasaland, 15.

15. Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 1”; Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 2”; Krishnamurthy, “Economic Policy”; Palmer, “Johnston and Jameson.”

16. Davies, Fifty Years of Progress.

17. Goodman, Tobacco in History.

18. Davies, Fifty Years of Progress.

19. Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 1”; Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 2.”

20. Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 2,” 76.

21. Here we can see an early form of marketing contracts used by the ITC.

22. Ng'ong'ola, “Malawi's Agricultural Economy.”

23. Wilshaw, Century of Growth, 25.

24. Mintz, Sweetness and Power; Fanon, Black Skin.

25. Palmer, “Johnston and Jameson.”

26. White, Magomero; Chirwa, Alomwe.

27. White, Magomero, 87.

28. Krishnamurthy, “Economic Policy.”

29. White, Magomero, 89–90.

30. Vail, “State and the Creation,” 51.

31. Bruce quoted in Krishnamurthy, “Economic Policy,” 395.

32. White, Magomero.

33. Vail, “State and the Creation”; Vaughan, “Food Production.”

34. Kandawire, “Structure of the Colonial System,” 42. The thangata system was justified in the colonial discourse by claiming the practice had indigenous precedents. See also White, Magomero, 150–2.

35. White, Magomero, 153.

36. White, Magomero, Here we can also see an early form of contract farming, where peasants were lent credit (inputs) in exchange for exclusive purchase rights over the crop.

37. Anthill, “History of the Native Grown Tobacco Industry”; Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 1”; Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 2”; Davies, Fifty Years of Progress; McCracken, “Peasants, Planters and the Colonial State: Case of Malawi”; McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board”; Wilshaw, Century of Growth.

38. Wilshaw, Century of Growth. Here again we see the ITC using marketing contracts.

39. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board.”

40. Wilshaw, Century of Growth, 47.

41. Anthill, “History of the Native Grown Tobacco Industry,” 56.

42. Wilshaw, Century of Growth, 47.

43. Ng'ong'ola, “Malawi's Agricultural Economy,” 248.

44. Wilshaw, Century of Growth, 48.

45. McCracken, “Experts and Expertise.”

46. Van Donge, “Disordering the Market.” As van Donge notes, the NTB did play a role in ensuring the quality of peasant fire-cured tobacco. However, van Donge appears too generous towards the NTB in the late 1920s and 1930s, highlighting their regulatory role in protecting quality, as opposed to constraining peasant/smallholder production to allow expansion of estate tenant production.

47. Blunt, Report of a Commission, 21.

48. McCracken, “Peasants, Planters and the Colonial State: Case of Malawi”; McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board”; Palmer, “White Farmers in Malawi”; Ng'ong'ola, “Malawi's Agricultural Economy.”

49. Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 1”; Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 2.”

50. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board,” 177.

51. Vail, “State and the Creation.”

52. Quotation in Vail, “State and the Creation,” 62; Chanock, “Political Economy of Independent Agriculture,” 125.

53. White, Magomero, 171.

54. Rangeley, “Brief History: Part 2,” 77.

55. Ng'ong'ola, “Malawi's Agricultural Economy.” The timing of the closure of mini-markets appears significant as it corresponds to the switch by estates in the Central Region from estate labour production of flue-cured towards fire-cured estate tenant production, following the collapse of flue prices in 1927.

56. Ng'ong'ola, “Malawi's Agricultural Economy.” The timing of the closure of mini-markets appears significant as it corresponds to the switch by estates in the Central Region from estate labour production of flue-cured towards fire-cured estate tenant production, following the collapse of flue prices in 1927.

57. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board.”

58. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board.”, Anthill, “History of the Native Grown Tobacco Industry.”

59. See the words of Kenyon-Slaney, Lilongwe District Commissioner in 1934, quoted in McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board,” 178.

60. Anthill, “History of the Native Grown Tobacco Industry,” 57.

61. Palmer, “Johnston and Jameson,” 214.

62. Chirwa, “Garden of Eden.”

63. Power, “Race, Class, Ethnicity.”

64. Palmer, “Johnston and Jameson,” 240.

65. Blunt, Report of a Commission.

66. Chirwa, “Garden of Eden.”

67. Chirwa, “Child and Youth Labour.”

68. Chirwa, “Garden of Eden,” 279–80. One reason was the NTB was not active in this region until 1938, and, unlike the Central Region, customary land producers benefited from competition between traders.

69. McCracken, “Sharecropping in Malawi,” 40.

70. McCracken, “Economics and ethnicity.”

71. White, Magomero, 175. See also the quotation in Palmer, “Johnston and Jameson,” 237–8.

72. Vail, “State and the Creation”; McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board.” Further measures to squeeze customary land production included: Palmer, “Johnston and Jameson,” extending leasehold estates from 21 to 99 years in 1931; McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board,” granting new land leases to European planters in the Central Region in 1932 (including NTB members); and Kandawire, “Structure of the Colonial System,” amending the Native Authority Ordinance of 1933 so it did not apply to estate land.

73. Rangeley, “Brief History: Part 1,” 40–1.

74. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board.”

75. Kydd and Christiansen, “Structural Change in Malawi.” This approach was continued for many decades by consecutive state marketing boards.

76. Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 1”; Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 2.”

77. Woelk et al., “Prospects for Tobacco Control.” A similar set of policies were enacted at this time in Southern Rhodesia where auction floors and the Tobacco Marketing Board were created in 1936.

78. Gately, La Diva Nicotina.

79. Ng'ong'ola, “Malawi's Agricultural Economy,” 250. The 1946 Tobacco Ordinance relaxed restrictions on tobacco production and allowed onto the NTB Board some Africans. See also McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board.”

80. McCracken, “Sharecropping in Malawi.” This practice, illegal under the 1926 Tobacco Ordinance, was widespread. It was legalised in the 1946 Tobacco Ordinance.

81. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board.”

82. Wilshaw, Century of Growth, 70.

83. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board,” 187.

84. Governor Colby quoted in ibid.

85. Vaughan, Story of an African Famine, 78.

86. Vaughan, Story of an African Famine, 78.

87. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board.”

88. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board.”

89. Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 1”; Rangeley, “Brief History, Part 2.”

90. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board.”

91. Vail, “State and the Creation,” 72.

92. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board,” 191.

93. McCracken, “Planters, Peasants and the Colonial State: Impact of the Native Tobacco Board,” 191.

94. McCracken, “Sharecropping in Malawi.”

95. Ng'ong'ola, “Malawi's Agricultural Economy.” See the words of Dr Kamuzu Banda, Minister of Agriculture, quoted in McCracken, “Sharecropping in Malawi,” 55.

96. Ng'ong'ola, “Malawi's Agricultural Economy”.

97. Kydd, “Malawi in the 1970s.”

98. Kydd, “Malawi in the 1970s.”

99. Vail, “State and the Creation.”

100. Ng'ong'ola, “Malawi's Agricultural Economy,” 255.

101. Akehurst, Tobacco.

102. Sahn and Arulpragasam, Development Through Dualism?

103. Mkandawire, Poverty, Democracy and Macro Economic Management.

104. Orr, “Green Gold?” The estate sector's exclusive rights over burley and flue-cured tobacco created in the 1952 Tobacco Ordinance were reinforced by the 1962 Africans on Private Estates Ordinance, and later by the 1972 Special Crops Act.

105. Baker, Nyasaland.

106. McCracken, “Sharecropping in Malawi.” This is clearly articulated in the government's 1971 DevPol planning document.

107. McCracken, “Sharecropping in Malawi.” This is clearly articulated in the government's 1971 DevPol planning document, 58.

108. Kydd, “Malawi in the 1970s.”

109. Kydd, “Malawi in the 1970s.”

110. McCracken, “Sharecropping in Malawi.”

111. Kydd, “Malawi in the 1970s.”

112. Kydd, “Malawi in the 1970s.”

113. Quoted in Pryor, Political Economy of Poverty, 81.

114. Van Donge, “Disordering the Market.”

115. Thomas, “Economic Developments in Malawi.”

116. McCracken, “Sharecropping in Malawi.”

117. Pryor and Chipeta, “Economic Development Through Estate Agriculture.”

118. Kydd, “Malawi in the 1970s.” Growth in this period was supported, in part, by the Lome convention of 1973, which gave duty free access to European Commission markets.

119. Mkandawire, Poverty, Democracy and Macro Economic Management.

120. Harrigan, From Dictatorship to Democracy, 35.

121. Kydd and Christiansen, “Structural Change in Malawi”; Harrigan, From Dictatorship to Democracy.

122. Kydd, “Malawi in the 1970s.”

123. Harrigan, From Dictatorship to Democracy, 40–1.

124. Harrigan, From Dictatorship to Democracy, 40–1.

125. Mosley and Toye, “Design of Structural Adjustment Programmes.”

126. Harrigan, From Dictatorship to Democracy.

127. Harrigan, From Dictatorship to Democracy.

128. Conroy, “Economics of Smallholder Maize Production.”

129. Sahn and Arulpragasam, Development Through Dualism?, 15.

130. Kydd and Hewitt, “Effectiveness of Structural Adjustment Lending.”

131. Mkandawire, Poverty, Democracy and Macro Economic Management.

132. For example, see USAID, Agricultural Sector Assistance Program (ASAP). A further example of TAMA's exploitative practices can be seen in rents the organisation accrued through maintaining a monopoly over the supply of hessian sacks, a monopoly which only ended in the late 2000s.

133. Harrigan, From Dictatorship to Democracy.

134. World Bank, Report and Recommendation; USAID, Agricultural Sector Assistance Program (ASAP).

135. Government of Malawi, Statement of Development Policies 1987–1997.

136. Harrigan, From Dictatorship to Democracy.

137. Author's estimates based on Tobacco Control Commission datasets. Each of these clubs consisted of around 12–20 smallholder farmers.

138. Jaffee, Malawi's Tobacco Sector; Prowse, “Becoming a Bwana.”

139. World Bank, Accelerating Malawi's Growth; Jaffee, Malawi Agriculture; Van Donge, “Disordering the Market.”

140. Van Donge, “Disordering the Market.”

141. Prowse, “Becoming a Bwana,” 579.

142. Prowse, “Burley Tobacco”; Benson et al., Malawi – An Atlas of Social Statistics.

143. World Bank, Accelerating Malawi's Growth, iv. Numerous studies highlight the large multiplier effect in rural economies at this time, e.g. Zeller, Growth Linkages; Evans, Rapid Assessment; Orr, “Green Gold?”; and Peters, “Rural Income and Poverty.”

144. Prowse, “Becoming a Bwana.”

145. Van Donge, “Disordering the Market.”

146. Prowse, Comparative Value Chain Analysis.

147. Prowse, Comparative Value Chain Analysis.

148. Contract farming is a contentious issue within academic and policy debates. For recent overviews, see Oya, “Contract Farming”; and Prowse, Contract Farming in Developing Countries.

149. For a full discussion, see Moyer-Lee and Prowse, How Traceability.

150. It is not clear if processors/exporters contacted growers in the early decades of the century. We have seen how the ITC provided marketing contracts to favoured estates, but it is not clear if this involved the provision of inputs.

151. For a full discussion of the cross-border trade, see Prowse, Comparative Value Chain Analysis.

152. For a full discussion, see Prowse, Comparative Value Chain Analysis; and Moyer-Lee and Prowse, How Traceability.

153. There is a difference here between the NTB fixing prices when enjoying a monopsony and government trying to enforce minimum prices at auction.

154. Prowse, “Becoming a Bwana.”

155. Prowse, Contract Farming in Developing Countries.