Better Farming for the African
Somi: of us believe that the African native cultivates his gardens in the light of some heaven-sent instinct which it would be a pity to question ; others that he is bound so strongly in the grip of tribal custom that it would be quite impossible to induce him to change his methods ; while yet another group is Prepared to admit that the tribal level of subsistence should be raised, but is suspicious of any determined policy of develop- ment of the natives agriculture which should put him in a position to compete against the white. But in actual fact the question, in most parts of East and Central Africa at any rate, is not whether it would be easier or more desirable to stand still, but whether it is any longer possible to do so. Under the old tribal methods of agriculture it is probable that many African peoples faced annually, as they • do today, a severe food shortage, and that their diet would be considered insufficient for work of the type required under modern European conditions. But these methods themselves are no longer practicable in many parts of Africa. The area available for natives is too restricted, the most fertile agricultural soil is chiefly in the hands of Europeans, and (lie growth of native urban communities has produced dense populations in some regions for which a new type of agricultural development is absolutely necessary. This is the situation which Sir Daniel Hall has frankly faced in a summary of the Heath Clark lectures which he delivered in the autumn of 1935, proposing remedies which he describes with an ease and lucidity which is rare among technical experts on the subject.
Native methods of agriculture are wasteful, Sir Daniel tells us, because they depend on a shifting system of cultivation. The problem of maintaining continuously the fertility of the soil was solved in England by the end of the seventeenth century by the adoption of a four-course rotation, including a leguminous crop, and among the dense agricultural popula- tions of China by the conservation of human excreta to be returned to the soil. No such solution had been achieved by the African before the coming of the white man. In pastoral areas also lie is wasting limited resources at present by over- stocking on so large a scale as to produce soil erosion, a problem of special importance in Africa because of the complex emotional and religious attitudes to cattle found among the majority of Bantu tribes. These two practical difficulties- Sir Daniel discusses. He recommends the preservation of natural manure by the compost method, practised success- fully at Indore, in order to make fixed cultivation possible for the native, and the elimination of over-stocking by the organisation of cattle and meat markets and other adminis- trative measures.
But the practical question before the agricultural expert in Africa is of course threefold. First he must discover the chief needs of native agriculture in any region, and here the author, with his well-known interest in dietetic problems, urges the improvement of subsistence agriculture, rather than the concentration of research on the growth of crops suitable for export. Secondly he must be able to persuade the white man that it is worth his while to spend money on a forward policy of native agricultural development, and to increase very largely the administrative staff. Thirdly he must persuade the native to adopt the improved measures advocated—an equally difficult task. The agricultural expert in England is, after all, advising people who share his beliefs as to the way land should be used, cultivated, bought and sold, his economic values and ambitions, and his concepts of the desirability of foresight and individual saving. The tribal African for the most part does not. So also the dairy farming expert in this country may complain that English farmers are impervious to instruction, but they do. at least accept his fundamental thesis that beef should be eaten and that cows are kept to give milk. Whether or not our own economic and moral values and dietetic habits are essential to the African is debatable, but on this practical problem the anthropologist would probably doubt whether sonic of the remedies advocated by Sir Daniel will be successfully introduced without further research into the native's own agricultural system, his scientific knowledge and magic beliefs, the economic obligations- which bind hind, and his incentives to work. . The question is not one for the agti- culturist alone.
For the rest, those interested - in' wid6r political issues will probably want answers to a number of questions raised in this book. How far, for instance, can subsistence agri- culture be encouraged without the introduction of cash crops ? The ideal African peasant, according to some, Is one who will consent to work 'harder, according to methods of which he does not approve, in order to eat a bit rrio4_ , although living in a more congested space, and not attempting to produce very much for sale. In practice such individuals -do not forth a very numerous -class. But: such- questions are :clearly beyond the scope of Sir Daniel Hall's purpose. He has summarised clearly, in the space cif 100 -pages, one Of the most urgent problems facing us in Africa. He argues for 'native agricultural development with imagination and coil- Viction, arta; unlike many who write-- about 'conditions in tribal Africa, he never utters laments without proposing some practical remedies for the troubles he describes.
A. I. RICHARDS.
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