THE BEGINNINGS OF CAPITALIST OR EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE IN

COLONIAL ZAMBIA

Introduction
Like mining, agriculture in Northern Rhodesia was not a new phenomenon brought by
colonial rule. Africans had been engaged in the practice of farming since the Iron Age. They
participated in animal husbandry and crop production through shifting cultivation. Those who
produced more sold the excess. The only changes in the sector arose due to the arrival of
Europeans. Following the establishment of colonial in 1890, however, there arose significant
changes in the way agriculture was practised in the country.

CAPITALIST AGRICULTURE BEFORE 1911

Before 1911 Northern Rhodesia was considered a background agricultural region, vital only
as a labour reserve for the Congo, the Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. The importance
of agriculture came with the development of the railway line at the turn of the twentieth
century. However, the early setter farmers faced numerous problems which hindered their
progress. These problems were:

1. Lack of capital, a contributing factor to the undercapitalization was the failure of the
realization of the settlers’ dream of a Second Rand. Many prospective miners resorted
to farming purely by accident. They began to engage in farming mainly because land
was cheaper than where they came from. For instance, land within 20 miles along the
line of rail cost 1s 6d per acre and 3d per acre off the line of rail. Those who settled in
Fort Jameson and Abercorn not only found the land cheap but fertile and well watered
as well. The weather was also favourable for white settlement. The largest group of
settler farmers arrived around 1910 and settled between Kafue and Lusaka. These
were Afrikaners from South Africa and were slightly different from other settlers
because they did not employ Africans as workers. They used a system known as
Share Cropping i.e. peasant Afrikaner farmers worked as tenants on land owned by
their wealthier colleagues. As for this group, they cultivated, sold the crops and shared
the profits on land owned by the rich. Later, the peasant Afrikaners would buy their
own farms. They mainly grew bulrush millet and the Irish potatoes. A few reared
cattle.
2. Transportation –the most affected were those who had settled in Fort Jameson and
Abercorn. From Fort Jameson the only route to export produce was a footpath through
 Tete in Mozambique. The Great East Road was only constructed between 1928-9
though it still remained a tough terrain; further, a bridge was only constructed on the
Luangwa to replace a pontoon in 1934. Settler farmers used African porters (Mtenga
tenga) to transport their produce, mainly tobacco and cotton for sale. Their
counterparts, the coffee farmers and ranchers in Abercorn, were no different. The
Great North Road was only built in 1927.
In an article in the Zambia Journal of History (2004), Webby Kalikiti stated that
ranchers from Abercorn wishing to sell cattle had to walk down to Southern Rhodesia
through the Luangwa valley. During these journeys, farmers would at times lose some
of their animals to prey. The cost of ranching was also made high because the farmers
had to employ cattle boys who had to be fed and paid on those long arduous journeys.
At other times, especially at night, cattle would be attacked by prey, for example,
lions and crocodiles would have a feast as the animals crossed.
3. Insects and pests- for example, the cotton crop failed at Fort Jameson due to pests.
Tsetse also proved a menace for cattle ranchers in Fort Jameson and Abercorn. Tsetse
was also found in Abercorn between 1906 and 1908. What compounded the situation
was the lack of technology on how to deal with such epidemiological challenges.
Agricultural research institutes were non-existent. Contagious Bovan Pleuro-
Pneumonia was recorded in North-Western Zambia in 1915. Similarly, cotton
plantations were also affected at Magoye in Mazabuka by 1912.
4. Lack of marketing facilities- until the opening up of the Copperbelt mines in the mid-
1920s, markets for farm produce was restricted to railway sidings e.g. at Monze,
Magoye, Lusaka, e.t.c. Mission places were other places were the food was sold.
These markets however, were too small and did not encourage people to grow a lot.
The major destination for Zambian produce in the early days of colonial rule was the
mines of the Congo which began around 1910. Thousands of workers migrated to
work there and also needed to be fed. This opened up opportunities for settler farmers
in Zambia, some of the prominent beneficiaries of this development were the
Susemann Brothers and C. H. Werner. They bought cheap cattle from Bulozi and sold
beef in the Congo. The Susemann Bros even opened a cold room at Elizabethville for
beef sales. Kenneth Vickery argued that the opening of the mines in the Congo was a
stimulus to the development of agriculture along the line of rail, especially on the
Tonga plateau.
 5. Markets not easily assured - Colonial authorities elsewhere prevented the importation
of animals from Northern Rhodesia on the pretext that they were disease –ridden. In
essence, this was simply a protectionist policy.

EUROPEAN FARMING: 1911-1953

After 1911, the agricultural orientation of the country changed. For example, following the
failure of the cotton crop in Fort Jameson, settler farmers shifted to tobacco growing. This
was when the United Tobacco Company began to sponsor famers. The crop did well until the
onset of the world economic depression. Up to 1925, according to Prof. Ackson Kanduza,
tobacco worth £94,500 was sold in that town alone. By 1943, the value had risen to £225,600.
You can read more details about this in Kanduza’s ‘The Tobacco Industry of Northern
Rhodesia, 1912-1938’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 16, 2 (1983), 201-
229.

Elsewhere, other crops were tried. For example, coffee became a viable industry in Abercorn.
Between 1918 and 1935, at least 41½ tonnes of coffee were exported from that district.
However, pests attacked the crop in 1937, leading to heavy losses on the part of farmers.
Before 1940, therefore, the only viable agricultural industry was along the line of rail.

The government’s failure to pay the many Europeans who fought in the First and Second
World Wars resulted in the creation of the Soldier Settler Scheme. Under this programme ex-
servicemen were compensated in form of land for settlement between Monze and Choma.
Mkushi was mainly settled by ex-soldiers who had served in the WWII. This scheme
contributed to the rise in the number of European farmers on the line of rail from 68 in 1911
to 250 by 1946. Maize was the main cash crop grown because it had a ready market in the
Congo and the Copperbelt.

The Triumph of European Agriculture over African Agriculture, 1930-53

After World War One, there were profound negative effects on African agriculture especially
in terms of land alienation, taxation and labour migration. Many Africans were recruited as
labourers on European farms in the country and elsewhere in the region. In 1942 the
government put in place a deliberate policy of Labour Corps to help European farmers
easily get labour. The African workers employed under this scheme worked in groups on
settler farms but were paid by the government, not the farmers themselves. In this way, some
Africans neglected their own farms in preference for paid labour. Others however took
advantage of working on European farms to learn modern farming methods and expanded
their enterprises. This was very common in the Southern and Central provinces (read, for
example, Kenneth Vickery and Yizenge Chondoka). According to Samuel N. Chipungu, the
proximity of Africans to Europeans along the line of rail contributed to the upliftment of
Tonga and Lenje agriculture. He further observed that the Tonga competed favourably with
Europeans over fertilisers and ploughs. This competition from Africans and the onset of the
world economic depression in 1929 threatened the survival of European settler farmers. As a
result, settlers exerted pressure on the government to put in place certain measures to protect
their businesses. These measures included:

1. Maize Control Board (1936) - in 1935 a recommendation was made for the establishment
of this board. The following year, the Maize Control Ordinance established the Maize
Control Board whose function was to regulate the marketing of maize in the country. The
background to this was that between 1930 and 1935 African maize sales had risen by more
than 300% from 30,000 bags to 100,000 bags of 200 lb. For European farmers, on the other
hand, the increase in maize production during the same period was only 25% from 108,000
bags to 211,000 bags. This situation was exacerbated by the world economic slump which led
to the closure of mines. In turn, the closure of mines resulted in massive job losses, hence the
maize market shrank. Since the role of the MCB was to regulate the marketing of maize, it
divided the sector into two pools i.e. Internal and External. White farmers were allocated ¾
of the internal market while the remainder was for Africans. Any surplus beyond the
allocated quota was exported at a lower price. The maize was also categorised into grades A
and B, for Europeans and Africans, respectively. (Read K. Vickery, “Saving Settlers: Maize
Controls in Northern Rhodesia”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 11, 2 (1985).

2. Cattle Control Board (1937) – this was established following the enactment of the Cattle
Control Ordinance of 1936. The board helped to improve the quality of European beef by
giving bonuses to the best beef producers. It also fixed a minimum price below which cattle
could not be sold. It also gave cattle loans to settler farmers. The setting up of the CCB
mainly resulted from an increase in the African share of the beef market from 50% in 1928 to
67% in 1936. Moreover, the capture of the Katanga beef market by Southern Rhodesian
farmers in the late 1920s had further weakened the position of settler farmers in Northern
Rhodesia. As a result of the CCB operations, between 1937 and 1957, the price of high grade
beef rose by 460% while that of low grade beef increased by 200%. High grade beef was kept
by Europeans, and the low grade beef by Africans. The market share of settler ranchers
increased from about 33% to 56% between 1936 and 1960 when the board ceased its
operations.

3. Extension Services – European farmers enjoyed technical advice from the Department of
Agriculture set up in 1925. Three research stations were set up in 1929 to cater for settler
farmers. These were Magoye (Mazabuka), Lunzuwa (Abercorn/Mbala) and Msekera
(Chipata/Fort Jameson). This was in addition to the central research station based at
Chilanga’s Mount Makulu (set up 1922). These institutions provided scientific information
on crops and animals to the settlers.

4. Credit Facilities – loans were made available to most European farmers to finance their
businesses. In 1937, the govt set up the Land Board. In 1953 it became known as the Land
Bank. The bank attracted settlers with little capital into farming by providing seasonal credit.
In this way, it supplemented loans from commercial banks which had been the only source of
credit for farmers for some time. The rate of interest on loans from the Land Bank was 4%
per annum. Repayments were not due until the 5th year of farming.

5. Transport – Europeans benefitted from preferential freight charges on railways – a form of

transport subsidies (Read A.M. Kanduza’s Thesis).