Proceedings of the South & East African combined agricultural, cotton, entomological and mycological conference held at Nairobi, August, 1926

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1738588467

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-115043

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Proceedings of the South & East African combined agricultural, cotton, entomological and mycological conference held at Nairobi, August, 1926

Place of publication:: Nairobi

Publisher:: East African Standard

Year of publication:: 1926

Scope:: VI, 337 Seiten; Ill.

Digitisation:: 2020

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. Agriculture

Collection:: Economics Books

‘ PART 71. Mr. KIRKHAM said that about three years ago he was touring in Java and was very much struck by the care of the Dutch Administra- tion for the 40,000,000 natives living on that island. With such a vast population and such a climate, foreign capital had come in with a view to making rich profits—as had been done—out of sugar. In general, as was done in East Africa, factories were put up, of which there were some 800 on the island, and sugar cane was bought from the native growers. This industry increased so much that Government realised that something had to be done to prevent the natives becoming too dependent on foreign capital and they laid it down that natives might only enter into contracts for the supply of sugar cane for a period of one year, and then conditionally that they planted the same land with rice next year, thus preventing the sugar industry from swamping the food production of the country. He thought that was a wise step on the part of the Dutch Administration. Mr. SIMPSON thought the problem was largely one of cost of transport. It was a very difficult problem in a centre like Kampala nowadays for a native to get his food cheaply, but, from the point of view of Africa, Kampala was a very large place and supported a large number of natives from outside. The natives in the Province lived on plantains and it was evident that it was not economic to transport plantains long distances. In places with crops like tea and coffee, there was a tendency to concentrate on the money crop and neglect food crops, but with a crop like cotton, as they had to organise the industry in Uganda, it was possible, in fact compulsory, that for every acre under cotton, there should be a larger acreage under food crops. In territories which were very sparsely provided with railway communications, it was very difficult indeed for food producers in outlying areas to supply their food products at a reasonable cost to natives who were growing crops for export; in fact, it was often cheaper for the latter to buy imported food. In Uganda the natives from outlying areas came in to work on public works and railways more particularly, and the internal costs of transport were too high to admit of the transport of food products at any price which the natives could afford, so that instead of becoming food producers, they became the labouring force of the Protectrate for the time being. Mr. KIRBY drew attention in that connection to crops such as rice and beans. Rice and certain kinds of beans would stand a certain amount of porterage. In a certain area in Tanganyika last year 10,000 tons of rice were taken "120 miles by head porterage.to the railway: rice produced by the efforts of native producers, assisted by the buying power of the Indian shop-keeper. In that case the natives were able to grow cotton as a principal crop and could be fed on plantations through the production of more remote districts. He had in mind not only that the Coast natives should be fed from remote districts, but also that the remote districts should increase their production of food crops with a view to providing food for those districts which possessed adequate transport facilities and could grow economic crops to advantage Mr. SIMPSON said that there was a small rice industry in Uganda, but it was 50 or 60 miles from the port on Lake Victoria; attempts had been made to try to encourage that industry by prohibiting the import of rice from other territories. He had, however, been unable to support the proposal because there was a large rice =F

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