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 I. Opening speeches, agenda and programme

Collection:: Economics Books

PART 1. Tt is not only that the population of the world is increasing, but that the standard of life is rising generally everywhere and that all the peoples of the world are requiring more and more of the fruits of the earth if they are to expand or even maintain their standard of life and their industries. The economic pressure that results from that demand 1s an immeasurable force and that is the force with which we have to deal here in East Africa at the present time. That mighty force creates one of the greatest political problems in history. 1 am not going to speak about that now except to say this, that the political problem would be insoluble without the help of the scientific study which you represent. There is an extraordinary range of products obtainable from these regions. There is a wide range of animal products, grains, pulses, oil seeds, fibres for textile industries, rubber, fruit, all connected with the agricultural industry of the countries represented at this Conference. Which of these things are we to concentrate on most and how are we to proceed with the production of the best crops? How are we to deal moreover with some >f the features of the agricultural problem here, where there is not only great wealth of soil but a great wealth of pests? In all these things we want your help in research and investigation. The study of applied agriculture has been for years carried on in rather a sporadic and unco-ordinated and piecemeal fashion; and it is only in the present century that it has really come to be organised. Looking back on it, it reminds me a little of the history of the humanities, scholarship and learning after the fall of the Roman Empire. During the dark ages when human learning was at a very low ebb, scholars, single scholars were travelling through the darkness feeling themselves very much alone and lifting weak and tremulous lamps to try and illumine the shadows about them. But as you know, after the dark ages came one of those extraordinary changes in history. The sky turned grey and light began to spread. The lonely workers discovered that they were not alone; scholar held out hand to scholar; the pursuit of knowledge at last was organised. ~~ Great universities were founded and from that time the pursuit of learning went on like a great army on the march with all its accoutrements glinting in the sun. That is something like the history of the study of agriculture in the last two generations. It has made astonishing progress in the present century. Research is being co-ordinated and organized, and it owes its present progress in the Empire to one man more than any other, Lord Milner. To his name I pay tribute to-day. No man would have welcomed so gladly the Conference assembled here as Lord Milner, who was one of the great pioneers of agricultural study and research in the Empire. I am glad to know that the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad is making progress with the scholarship scheme in which we participate. I am also glad to know that in the heart of the Empire, in London, there is now set up a system parallel to the Committee of Imperial Defence, the great Committee of Civil Research, to co-ordinate the investigation and study of all the great problems of normal life. Lord Balfour, who is the leading spirit of that Committee at the present time, is not only a statesman of unrivalled experience but is a man of science and philosophy, and I believe under his broad and fertile mind that Committee is going to perform the oreatest services to the Colonial Empire. 1 can say on behalf of N

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