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 III. Cotton

Collection:: Economics Books

PART 111. the day’s deliveries of the different qualities (without guarantee as to quantities), each native then delivering his parcels of those qualities at the stores of the successful bidders (as the deliveries of different qualities would often .be purchased by different buyers), where he was paid by the buyer under supervision and assistance by the Agricultural Officer. One advantage of this method of selling large deliveries of undefined quantites was the elimination of the small speculator, who was not in a‘ position of certainty for providing cover for his purchases. The quickly continued increase in production necessitated a still further widening and simplification of the system; and this is the method in operation for cotton auction markets at the present time. In this, deliveries of seed-cotton during periods of a week, a fortnight, or a month (depending on the quantity likely to come in) are sold by auction at a convenient centre in the district just before each period to which the deliveries refer, samples of the different qualities being exhibited by the Agricultural Department at the auction and at the buying centres, and the successful bidders entering into an under- taking to pay the prices at which the deliveries were knocked down, and to grade according to those samples. All this is carried on under the activity and inspection of a District Agricultural Officer, who where requisite is assisted by temporary market supervisors (Europeans). Among the other advantages, this system possesses that of greater popularity among native sellers than the former ones, as it supplies buying centres open at any time in the picking season for deliveries, instead of periodical markets affording only interrupted opportunities for selling. There is no doubt that the quick increase in native cotton growing in the Territory and the high opinion on the Liverpool market of the cotton thus produced are due in the first place to these markets, through which natives were encouraged by fair prices for the different qualities to grow cotton and to sort it carefully; the latter having become a habit that has continued where Cotton Auction Markets have been replaced by (central) Cotton Markets. Their success has been in the first place due to the energy and enthusiasm of District Agricultural Officers doing the work for them, and to the freely given assistance of Administrative Officers (who have had to conduct them alone in some cases) and of the Treasury (which has provided cash facilities), as well as (in Rufiji) the help of the officials of the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation. The table at the end of the paper (which of course does not give figures of total production) shows that the quantity of seed-cotton sold at the auctions in any one year quickly reached (in 1924) over 4,500 tons for which native producers received more than £120,000. In the four years the total amount of seed-cotton dealt with at the auctions was more than 7,300 tons for which native growers were richer by a sum exceeding £180,000. The table also demonstrates well the quick decline in 1925 in the total quantity of cotton handled at these markets owing to their replacement by open cotton markets in the Morogoro District (with Kilosa), Lindi, and Tabora, their substitution in the first of these districts having the greatest effect on account of its predominating output. [28

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