Eastern Africa

The East African Groundnut Scheme and Its Legacy

By: Nicholas Westcott

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Paperback | 1 September 2020

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262 Pages

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23.39 x 15.6 x 1.6

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A compelling exploration of one of the most ill-advised and calamitous interventions in colonial development history. As colonial development took off after the Second World War, in the context of national food shortages, Britain's Labour Government initiated the Groundnut Scheme, an extraordinarily ambitious project to convert 3 million acres of bush in Tanganyika into the largest mechanized groundnut farm in the world. It was to prove the largest, most expensive and most disastrous development scheme ever undertaken by the British Government. Never previously analysed in depth, the author draws on a wide range of sources to discuss the political dynamics that drove the Groundnut Scheme forward, despite the gravest doubts of agriculturalists and economists, why it went wrong, and what its impact has been since on the practice of economic development. Initially employing the United Africa Company as agent, the government set up an Overseas Food Corporation to manage the Groundnut Scheme as an example of socialist development in Africa. Army surplus kit and demobbed soldiers poured into the country and were sent up the railway line to Kongwa to beat the bush. By the time the effort was abandoned in 1950, costs had risen to a colossal 36 million - equivalent to over 1 billion today - and yet almost no groundnuts had been exported. The prototype of many large-scale, government-run, high-cost development projects that failed to deliver, the Groundnut Scheme was perhaps the first major failure of agricultural development in Africa, and its legacy in development practice still with us today.

Industry Reviews

[B]eautifully written and interspersed with interesting observations and amusing anecdotes. The book is also exceedingly well researched, every statement and argument being painstakingly corroborated with primary and secondary resources. [An] important contribution to the historiography of Britain's imperialism and development policy in east Africa. -- INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
This is a ripping good read. [...] Nicholas Westcott is well qualified to spin this particular yarn with wit and academic aplomb. * Tanzanian Affairs *
This book is a necessary addition to the study of post-war British imperialism, and relies on a remarkable array of primary sources. Its interweaving of the domestic and international aspects of the Scheme, as well as the impressive use of evidence, provide a laudable contribution to the existing research on colonial development and post-war British imperial history. -- English Historical Review

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