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Ecology to Technocracy: Scientists, Surveys and Power in the Agricultural Development of Late-Colonial Zambia

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 37; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03057070.2011.554210

1465-3893

Andrew S. Bowman,

African history and culture studies

Abstract This article provides an account of the transformation in agricultural development expertise that took place in late-colonial Zambia. Frustration with the slow pace of agricultural 'improvement' in the Native Reserves forced the socially and ecologically aware approach to rural development fostered during the 1930s–1940s, to give way to the technocratic model now associated with the green revolution agriculture and the 'developmental state'. Through an exploration of these changes, the article seeks to advance ongoing debates concerning the interrelationship between knowledge, intervention, expertise and power in rural development. It focuses on research undertaken by Department of Agriculture (DOA) staff on the Tonga Plateau in Zambia's Southern Province during the 1940s and 1950s. Being both a major maize producing area and home to political organisations that challenged colonial and postcolonial rulers, the Tonga Plateau has long been the subject of concentrated scholarly enquiry. In late colonial Zambia, its political and economic importance made it a living laboratoryFootnote1 for various scientists and technical experts. The article contributes to the rich historiography of agriculture on the Tonga Plateau by examining the knowledge claims behind various forms of state intervention that took place there. Notes 1 I follow Helen Tilley and Cristophe Bonneuil here in appropriating Lord Hailey's phrase describing Africa's utility to scientists during the years of his African Survey. 2 Government of Northern Rhodesia, Review of the Ten Year Development Plan (Lusaka, Government Printer, 1948). 3 J.M. Hodge, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Ohio, OH, Ohio University Press, 2007), pp. 179–254. 4 See W. Beinart, 'Soil Erosion, Conservationism and Ideas about Development: A Southern African Exploration, 1900–60', in Journal of Southern African Studies (JSAS), 11, 1 (1984). On the African Survey see H. Tilley, Africa as a 'Living Laboratory': The African Research Survey and the British Colonial Empire: Consolidating Environmental, Medical and Anthropological debates, 1920–1940 (Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 2001). 5 On 'legibility' see, J. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1998). 6 See M. Cowen and R. Shenton, Doctrines of Development (London, Routledge, 1996), p. 438. 7 This draws upon the 'double-movement' described in K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of our Time (Boston, MA, Beacon Press, 2001 [1944]), and the social origins of anomalies which drive scientific revolutions from T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 1966). 8 On the 'developmental state', see C. Bonneuil, 'Development as Experiment: Science and State Building in Late Colonial and Postcolonial Africa, 1930–1970', in Osiris, 2, 15 (2000). 9 The Tonga Plateau is eponymous with the Tonga ethnic group of Southern Zambia and Northern Zimbabwe. At the time a loose effort was underway to create generalised representations of 'The Tonga', as an internally coherent ethnic group that could be understood, and ultimately managed by administrators. In reality, however, the people falling under this rubric were culturally, politically and economically diverse. To avoid problematic generalisation I use the term 'Tonga farmers' to refer to a progressive sub-section of Plateau Tonga society in Southern Zambia that were engaging with plough-based commercial maize production. However, for the purposes of demonstrating the forms of social categorisation used by the actors in my study I also frequently refer to 'The Tonga' in direct quotations or paraphrased sentences. 10 See K. Vickery, 'Saving Settlers: Maize Control in Northern Rhodesia', JSAS, 11, 2 (1985); M. Dixon-Fyle, 'Agricultural Improvement and Political Protest on the Tonga Plateau, Northern Rhodesia', The Journal of African History, 18, 4 (1977), pp. 579–96; J.C. Momba, 'Peasant Differentiation and Rural Party Politics in Colonial Zambia', JSAS, 11, 2 (1985); and S. Chipungu, The State, Technology, and Peasant Differentiation in Zambia: A Case Study of the Southern Province (Lusaka, Historical Association of Zambia, 1988). 11 A notable exception in Zambian historiography is H. Moore and M. Vaughan, Cutting Down Trees: Gender, Nutrition, and Agricultural Change in the Northern Province of Zambia, 1890–1990 (Oxford, James Currey, 1994). 12 Most important among the first criticisms is T. Asad (ed.), Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (London, Ithaca Press, 1973). Highlights of this now sizeable literature include J. Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Minnesota, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1994); J. Fairhead and M. Leach, Misreading the African Landscape: Society and Ecology in a Forest-Savanna Mosaic (Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1996); and A. Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1995). 13 See W. Beinart, K. Brown and D. Gilfoyle, 'Experts and Expertise in Colonial Africa Reconsidered: Science and the Interpretation of Knowledge', African Affairs, 108, 432 (2009), pp. 413–33; W. Beinart and J. McGregor, 'Introduction', in W. Beinart and J. McGregor (eds), Social History and African Environments (Oxford, James Currey, 2003); L. Schumaker, Africanizing Anthropology: Fieldwork, Networks and the Making of Cultural Knowledge in Central Africa (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2001), and Tilley, Africa as a 'Living Laboratory'. 14 Scientists are active in creating their context rather than passive victims of it. See B. Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor Network Theory (Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 2005). 15 UK National Archives (henceforth UKNA), CO 1015/435, F2, 'Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland: Brief, 1953'. 16 W.A. Lewis, 'Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour', in Manchester School, 22 (1954). Geoffrey Clay, chief architect of Northern Rhodesia's first development plan, adhered to the principles. See G. Clay, Memorandum on Post War Development Planning in Northern Rhodesia (Lusaka, Government Printer, 1945), pp. 17–18. 17 Lewis, Economic Development, pp. 171–5. 18 Lewis, Economic Development p. 173. 19 R.E. Baldwin, Economic Development and Export Growth: A Study of Northern Rhodesia, 1920–1960 (Berkley, CA, University of California Press, 1966), p. 140. 24 ZNA, Loc 216, Mag 2/21/11, F13, Notes for Sir Alan Pim, 1938, Appendix one: Memorandum on the future policy and organisation of the Department of Agriculture, 10 August 1933. 20 Vickery, 'Saving Settlers'. 21 Baldwin, Economic Development, p. 141. 22 UKNA, CO 1015/436, 'Federation of Rhodesia & Nyasaland Development Plans 1954–7', Vol. 1 (summary), p. 3. 23 Vickery, 'Saving Settlers'. 25 ZNA, Loc 216, Mag 2/21/11, F13, Notes for Sir Alan Pim, 1938, Appendix one: Memorandum on the future policy and organisation of the Department of Agriculture, 10 August 1933 26 ZNA, Loc 216, Mag 2/21/11, F13, Notes for Sir Alan Pim, 1938, Appendix one: Memorandum on the future policy and organisation of the Department of Agriculture, 10 August 1933, see also Appendix 2: Memorandum on the work of the DOA submitted to the agricultural adviser to the secretary of state, February 1937. 27 ZNA, Loc 216, Mag 2/21/11, F13, Notes for Sir Alan Pim, 1938. 28 H.A. Tempany, 'Agricultural Problems of the Colonial Dependencies', Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 1, 4 (1950), pp. 99–104. 29 Clay, 'Post-War Development'. 30 UKNA, CO 1015/435, F21/E1, 'Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland Development Plans', 1953, p. 15. 31 See G. Beresford-Stooke, 'Planning Native Development in Northern Rhodesia', African Studies, 2, 3 (1943), pp. 1,469–2,872. Operable knowledge does not so much describe reality as make it manageable. N. Rose and P. Miller, Governing the Present (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2009), pp. 16–17. 32 See E.B. Worthington, Science in Africa: A Review of Scientific Research Relating to Tropical and Southern Africa (London, Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 317, and Oxford University Rhodes House Library, MSS. Brit. Emp. S. 476, Box 3 (21), 'CE Johnson – Food and Cash Crops' (henceforth 'RH/CEJ'), p. 4. 33 Tilley, Africa as 'Living Laboratory', p. 113. 34 See P. Smith, 'Introduction', in The Ecological Survey of Zambia: The Traverse Records of C.G. Trapnell, 1932–43 (Kew, London, Royal Botanic Gardens, 2001), pp. 4–5. 35 Zambia National Archives (henceforth 'ZNA'), Loc. 107, MAG 2/9/7, f144, 'Lewin to Trapnell, 28th November 1946'. 36 RH/CEJ, p. 8. Collaboration with African farmers is strongly evident in Trapnell's Traverse Records. 37 Smith, Traverse Records, p. 7. 38 ZNA, Loc. 107, MAG 2/9/7, F9, 'Ecological Survey and Departmental Policy Programme, March 1st 1937'. 39 RH/CEJ, p. 23. 40 Tilley, Africa as 'Living Laboratory', p. 114. 41 H. Tilley, 'Introduction', in W. Allan, The African Husbandman (Münster, LIT Verlag, 2004), p. xxvi. Social bonds are an important aspect of knowledge formation, K. Knorr-Cetina, Epistemic-Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1999). 42 C.G. Trapnell and J.N. Clothier, The Soils, Vegetation and Agricultural Systems of North-Western Rhodesia (Lusaka, Government Printer, 1937), para. 195. 43 ZNA, Sec.1/392, F4, 'Moffat to Joint Development Adviser, 4 March 1946'. 44 W. Allan, The African Husbandman (London, Oliver and Boyd, 1965), p. 37. 45 S.M. Makings, 'Agricultural Change in Northern Rhodesia/Zambia, 1945–65', Food Research Institute Studies, VI, 2 (CA, Stanford University Press, 1966), p. 204. 46 Northern Rhodesia Department of Agriculture (henceforth 'NRDA'), Annual Report 1951 (Lusaka, Government Printer, 1952), p. 12. 47 Makings, Agricultural Change, p. 20. 48 NRDA, Annual Report 1952 (Lusaka, Government Printer, 1953), p. 11. 49 Rhodes House, MSS. Afr. s. 476 (43), 'Charles W. Lynn, Memorandum on Service in Agriculture in Northern Rhodesia, 1952–65' (henceforth 'RH/CWL'), p. 3, and Baldwin, Economic Development, pp. 150–1. 50 ZNA, Loc.219 Mag. 2/21/32, F184, Fraser to Allan, 27 May 1948. 51 See C.E. Johnson, 'African Farming Improvement in the Plateau Tonga Maize areas of Northern Rhodesia', Agricultural Bulletin of the Northern Rhodesia Department of Agriculture (Lusaka, Government Printer, 1957), p. 4. 52 NRDA, Annual Report 1945, p. 8. 53 ZNA, Loc. 219, Mag. 2/21/32, F256, Johnson to District Commissioner, Mazabuka, 1st November 1948. 54 Dixon-Fyle, 'Agricultural Improvement', p. 583. 55 See chapters 6 and 7, in L. Mulford, Zambia: The Politics of Independence, 1957–64 (London, Oxford University Press, 1967). 56 ZNA, Loc.219 Mag. 2/21/32, F303, 'Agricultural Staff from Livingstone District'; ZNA, Loc.5188, SP4/12/38, District Commissioner, Mazabuka, to Provincial Commissioner, 17 November 1949. 57 See W. Allan, M. Gluckman, D.U. Peters and C.G. Trapnell, Land Holding and Land Usage Among the Plateau Tonga of Mazabuka District, A Reconnaissance Survey, 1945 (Oxford, Rhodes-Livingstone Papers, Published for the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute by Oxford University Press, 1948). 58 Bonneuil sees planned development as a bounded experiment where subjects are 'amenable to data extraction'. See Bonneuil, 'Development as Experiment'. 59 NRDA, Annual Report 1950, p. 13. 60 NRDA, Annual Report 1943, p. 4. 61 NRDA, Annual Report 1944, p. 5. 62 NRDA, Annual Report 1945, p. 7. 63 RH/CEJ, p. 8. 64 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, p.18. 65 See Tilley, 'Introduction', p. xii. 66 ZNA, Loc.219, Mag. 2/21/33, F15, 'Allan to the Chief Secretary'. 67 See Allan, African Husbandman, pp. 8–35. 68 Tilley, 'Introduction', pp. xxxiv–xxxv. 69 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, p. 20, and M. Gluckman, 'Forward', in Allan, African Husbandman, p. v. 70 Schumaker, Africanizing Anthropology, pp. 39–116. 71 ZNA, Sec.1/131, F33. 'Seven-Year Research Plan', pp. 10, 25–6. 72 ZNA, Sec.1/126, F1/1, 'Cooperation between Government and RLI, 18th April 1944', p. 10. 73 R. Brown, 'A Passage in the Life of a White Anthropologist: Max Gluckman in Northern Rhodesia', Journal of African History, 20 (1979). 74 R. Brown, 'A Passage in the Life of a White Anthropologist: Max Gluckman in Northern Rhodesia', Journal of African History, 20 (1979), p. 538. 75 ZNA, Sec. 1/131, F33, 'Seven-Year Research Plan', p. 19, and Brown, Gluckman in Northern Rhodesia, p. 534. 76 See Gluckman, 'Forward', p. vi. 77 Prevailing wisdom saw an emergent class of landowners displacing smaller farmers. See Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, pp. 85–7. 78 Prevailing wisdom saw an emergent class of landowners displacing smaller farmers. See Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, pp. 85–7, pp. 116–20. The concept of the 'ethnic-spatial fix' is taken from D. Moore, Suffering for Territory: Race, Place and Power in Zimbabwe (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2005). For Africans to be administered separately, they had to be consigned to separate spaces. 79 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, p. 134. 80 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, p. 134, p. 2. 81 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, p. 134, pp. 161. 82 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, p. 134, pp. 131–7. 83 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, p. 134, pp. 178–82. ZNA, Loc. 132, Mag 2/5/18, 'Mazabuka Tour Report 16, 1953'. 84 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, pp. 13–17. 85 >Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, pp. 66–70. 86 >Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey pp. 17, 185–92. 87 ZNA, Sec.1/131, F38, 'Report on Research 1946–47, Max Gluckman'. 88 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, pp. 34–41. 89 Ibid., pp. 53–64. 90 Ibid., p. 146. 91 Ibid., p. 5. 92 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, p. 8. 93 ZNA, Loc.219 Mag. 2/21/32, F13, 'Meeting of Agricultural Officers, 21st January, 1946'. 94 See Triumph of the Expert, p. 99 and NRDA, Annual Report 1952, p. 7. 95 RH/CEJ, pp. 2–3. 96 Beresford-Stooke, 'Planning Native Development', pp. 150–51. 97 NRDA, Annual Report 1948, p. 10; Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, pp. 92–4. 98 ZNA, Loc.132, Mag 2/5/18, Fraser to Halcrow, 22 January 1951. 99 ZNA, Loc.132, Mag 2/5/18, 'Mazabuka Tour Report 8, 1950'. 100 ZNA, Loc.219, Mag. 2/21/32, F182. Fraser to DOA, 22 May 1949. 101 C.J. Lewin, Agriculture and Forestry Development Plans for Ten Years (Lusaka, Government Printer, 1945). 102 See O.J.M. Kalinga, 'The Masters Farmers Scheme in Nyasaland, 1950–1962: A Study of a Failed Attempt to Create a 'Yeoman Class', African Affairs, 92 (1993), and G. Kitching, Class and Economic Change in Kenya: The Making of an African Petite Bourgeoisie (London, James Currey, 1980). 103 ZNA, Loc.5085, SP4/2/25, F14, 'Southern Province Annual Agricultural Report, 1950'. 104 Northern Rhodesia Department of African Affairs, Annual Report 1947, p. 64. 105 ZNA, Loc.219 Mag. 2/21/32, F77, Fraser to Allan, 4 December 1947. 106 NRDA, Annual Report 1950, p. 13. 107 Vickery, 'Saving Settlers'. 108 Momba, 'Peasant Differentiation'. 109 ZNA, Loc.5188, SP4/12/38, F38, Vaux to Millembo 23 November 1948; and F52, Memo from the Economic Secretary, 3 January 1949. 110 ZNA, Loc.5188, SP4/12/38, F16, Vaux to Williams, 2 September 1948. 111 ZNA, Loc.132, Mag 2/5/18, 'Namwala District, Tour Report 1, 1950'; and Loc.5188, SP4/12/38, F69, Vaux to Walubita [undated]. 112 ZNA, Loc.5188, SP4/12/38, F102, Memo from Provincial Commissioner, 25 February 1951, and F133, Circular Minute, Board of African Agriculture, 16 January 1951. 113 NRDA, Annual Report 1950, p. 15. 114 Johnson, 'African Farming Improvement', p. 17. 115 NRDA, Annual Report 1953, p. 15. 116 NRDA, Annual Report 1956, p. 8, and A.M. Morgan-Rees and R.H. Howard, 'An Economic Survey of Commercial African Farming Among the Sala of Mumbwa District', Agricultural Bulletin, 10 (Lusaka, Government Printer, 1955), p. 4. 117 NRDA, Annual Report 1952, p. 14. 118 ZNA, Loc.5188, SP4/12/38, Martin to Johnson, 18 March, 1949. 119 N. Cullather, 'Miracles of Modernization: The Green Revolution and the Apotheosis of Technology', Diplomatic History, 28, 2 (2004), pp. 229–31. 120 See Dixon-Fyle, 'Agricultural Improvement'. 121 See Makings, Agricultural Change, p. 225. 122 NRDA, Annual Report 1952, p. 6. 123 Johnson, 'African Farming Improvement', p. 16. 124 J.R.T. Wood, The Welensky Papers: A History of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Durban, Graham Publishing, 1983), p. 258. 125 Rhodes House, 'The Welensky Papers', 46/8, f3, 'White National Farmers Union Congress, 1951'. 126 Clay, Post War Development, pp. 10–11. 127 Clay, Post War Development, pp. 10–11, p. 10. 129 ZNA, Sec.1/131, F33, 'Seven-Year Research Plan', pp. 25–26, 36. 134 ZNA, Sec.1/102, F157, CJ Lewin, 18 July 1945. 128 ZNA, Sec.1/392, F7, 'The Relation of Research to Development Planning, 1945', p. 3. 130 ZNA, Sec.1/392, F7, 'The Relation of Research to Development Planning', p. 3. 131 ZNA, Sec.1/392, F7, 'The Relation of Research to Development Planning', p. 2. 132 ZNA, Sec.1/392, F7, 'The Relation of Research to Development Planning', p. 5, ZNA, Sec.1/131, F33, 'Seven-Year Research Plan', p. 36. 133 ZNA, Sec.1/392, F7, 'The Relation of Research to Development Planning', p. 6. 135 ZNA, Loc.164, Mag. 2/8/8, F4, 'Assistance from Colonial Research, Geoffrey Clay, 1950'. 136 ZNA, Loc.164, Mag. 2/8/8, F4, 'Assistance from Colonial Research, Geoffrey Clay, 1950' 137 ZNA, Loc.164, Mag. 2/8/8, F5, Eyre to Member for Agriculture and Natural Resources, 28 September 1950, Loc.164, Mag. 2/8/8, F256, Mount Makulu Irrigation Program, 10 August 1953. 138 Scott argues that scientific agriculture relies upon 'radical simplifications' and 'idealised acres' to produce valid knowledge Scott, Seeing Like a State, pp. 288–90. 139 Papers of Colin Graham Trapnell at Kew Gardens Library (henceforth CGT) 2/1, Trapnell to Martin, 18 October 1949. 140 ZNA, Loc.165, Mag 2/8/12, F23, 'Territorial Organisation of Agricultural Research, 11 April 1956'. 141 ZNA, Loc.165, Mag 2/8/12, F74, 'Summary of Research Results, 1957–58'; and Allan, African Husbandman, p. 7. 142 RH/CWL, p. 2. 143 RH/CWL, p. 2, p.3. 144 Allan became Director of Agriculture in Mauritius. Trapnell founded an East African ecology school. Gluckman founded the Department of Social Anthropology at Manchester University, and hosted William Allan for guest seminars. 145 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, 'Meeting to Discuss Land-Use survey, 21st February 1957', p. 1. 146 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Mansfield to Johnson, 5 March 1957. 147 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, 'Meeting to Discuss Land Use Survey, 21 February 1957'. 148 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, 'Meeting to Discuss Land Use Survey, 21 February 1957', pp. 2–3. 149 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Mansfield to CAO, 2 October 1956. 150 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Mansfield to Lynn, 6 October 1956. 151 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Mansfield to Lynn, 22 October 1956. 152 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Johnson to Lynn, 29 October 1956. 153 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Mansfield to Johnson, 6 November 1956. 154 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Johnson to Lynn, 6 November 1956. 155 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Johnson to Lynn, 6 November 1956, pp. 3–6. 157 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Mansfield to Johnson, 12 April 1957 156 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Mansfield to Johnson, 12 April 1957. 158 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, p. 30, ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Mansfield to Bayldon, 12 April 1957. 159 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Mansfield to Johnson, 12 April 1957. 160 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Mansfield to Johnson, 12 April 1957 161 ZNA, Loc.171, Mag 2/9/14, Lynn to Johnson, 14 December 1957, and NRDA, Annual Report 1957, p. 13. 162 UKNA, OD 11/33, 'Agricultural Research Council', October 1961. 163 RH/CEJ, p. 19. 164 RH/CWL, p. 14. 165 ZNA, Loc.165, Mag 2/8/12, F82, 'Organisation of Agricultural Research', 17 May 1960. 166 NRDA, Annual Report 1959, pp. 17–24; J. McCann, Maize and Grace: Africa's Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500–2000 (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 140–62. 167 See I. Scoones and J. Thompson (eds), Farmer First Revisited: Innovation for Agricultural Research and Development (Rugby, Practical Action Publishing, 2009), quote from A. Hall, 'Introduction', p. 34. 168 Schumaker, Africanizing Anthropology, pp. 190–227. 169 Allan et al., Reconnaissance Survey, pp. 58–-60. 170 CGT, 3/5, 'Proposed Classification of Tropical African Vegetation', 7 March 1950. 171 D. Mosse and D. Lewis, The Aid Effect: Giving and Governing in International Development (London, Pluto, 2005). 172 B. Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1987).