British Central Africa Company
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British Central Africa Company
The British Central Africa Company Ltd was one of the four largest European-owned companies that operated in colonial Nyasaland, now Malawi. The company was incorporated in 1902 to acquire the business interests that Eugene Sharrer, an early settler and entrepreneur, had developed in the British Central Africa Protectorate. Sharrer became the majority shareholder of the company on its foundation. The company initially had trading and transport interests, but these were sold by the 1930s. For most of the colonial period, its extensive estates produced cotton, tobacco or tea but the British Central Africa Company Ltd developed the reputation of being a harsh and exploitative landlord whose relations with its tenants were poor.M Vaughan (1987). ''The Story of an African Famine'', pp. 61, 64, 73.R. Palmer (1986). ''Working Conditions and Worker Responses on the Nyasaland Tea Estates'', 1930-1953, pp. 119, 121-2, 126. In 1962, shortly before independence, the company sold most of its u ...
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Nyasaland
Nyasaland () was a British protectorate located in Africa that was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Between 1953 and 1963, Nyasaland was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. After the Federation was dissolved, Nyasaland became independent from Britain on 6 July 1964 and was renamed Malawi. Nyasaland's history was marked by the massive loss of African communal lands in the early colonial period. In January 1915, the Reverend John Chilembwe staged an attempt at rebellion in protest at discrimination against Africans. Colonial authorities reassessed some of their policies. From the 1930s, a growing class of educated African elite, many educated in the United Kingdom, became increasingly politically active and vocal about gaining independence. They established associations and, after 1944, the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC). When Nyasaland was forced in 1953 into a Federation with Southern and Northern Rho ...
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Nsanje
Nsanje (formerly Port Herald) is the main city in Nsanje District within the Southern Region of Malawi. The intense urbanization in the fertile Shire River valley has formed an extensive urbanized zone that runs from the city of Bangula, further north, passing through the city of Nsanje, in the center, and arriving in the city of Marka, in the south, even crossing the Mozambican border, covering the town of Vila Nova de Fronteira. Transport The city has a railway station on the Sena railway, under concession of Central East African Railways. The railway through Nsanje that connects Blantyre with Beira, Mozambique was severely disrupted by the Mozambique Civil War and remains closed. The main road north connecting the city to the rest of Malawi is being upgraded. Shipping A project is currently underway to dredge part of the Shire River The Shire is the largest river in Malawi. It is the only outlet of Lake Malawi and flows into the Zambezi River in Mozambique. Its length i ...
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Crown Lands
Crown land (sometimes spelled crownland), also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it. Today, in Commonwealth realms such as Canada and Australia, crown land is considered public land and is apart from the monarch's private estate. In Britain, the hereditary revenues of Crown lands provided income for the monarch until the start of the reign of George III, when the profits from the Crown Estate were surrendered to the Parliament of Great Britain in return for a fixed civil list payment. The monarch retains the income from the Duchy of Lancaster. Australia In Australia, public lands without a specific tenure (e.g. National Park or State Forest) are referred to as Crown land or State Land, which is described as being held in the "right of the Crown" of either an individual State or the Commonwealth of Australia; there is ...
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Customary Tenure
Customary land is land which is owned by indigenous communities and administered in accordance with their customs, as opposed to statutory tenure usually introduced during the colonial periods. Common ownership is one form of customary land ownership. Since the late 20th century, statutory recognition and protection of indigenous and community land rights continues to be a major challenge. The gap between formally recognized and customarily held and managed land is a significant source of underdevelopment, conflict, and environmental degradation. Land law In the Malawi Land Act of 1965, "Customary Land" is defined as "all land which is held, occupied or used under customary law, but does not include any public land". In most countries of the Pacific islands, customary land remains the dominant land tenure form. Distinct customary systems of tenure have evolved on different islands and areas within the Pacific region. In any country there may be many different types of customary ...
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Smallholding
A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology, involvement of family in labor and economic impact. Smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent, smallholdings may not be self-sufficient, but may be valued for the rural lifestyle. As the sustainable food and local food movements grow in affluent countries, some of these smallholdings are gaining increased economic viability. There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in developing countries of the world alone, supporting almost two billion people. Small-scale agriculture is often in tension with industrial agriculture, which finds efficiencies by increasing outputs, monoculture, consolidating land under big agricu ...
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Natives On Private Estates Ordinance 1928
The Natives on Private Estates Ordinance, 1928 was a colonial ordinance passed by the Legislative Council of the Nyasaland Protectorate (now Malawi). The body was composed mainly of senior colonial officials, with a minority of nominated members, to represent European residents. The ordinance regulated the conditions under which land could be farmed by African tenants on estates owned by European settlers within that protectorate. The legislation corrected some of the worst abuses of the system of ''thangata'' under which tenants were required to work for the estate owner in lieu of paying rent. However, the ordinance failed in its intention of encouraging these tenants to increase the production of crops on the undeveloped land within those estates because of the worldwide 1930s Great Depression. Tensions between estate owners and tenants continued in the 1940s and the early 1950s over evictions and the tenants’ desire to market their produce freely. The legislation was mo ...
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Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. It reduces reliance on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, and the probability of developing resistant pests and weeds. Growing the same crop in the same place for many years in a row, known as monocropping, gradually depletes the soil of certain nutrients and selects for a highly competitive pest and weed community. Without balancing nutrient use and diversifying pest and weed communities, the productivity of monocultures is highly dependent on external inputs. Conversely, a well-designed crop rotation can reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers and herbicides by better using ecosystem services from a diverse set of crops. Additionally, crop rotations can improve soil structure and organic matter, which reduces erosion and increases farm system resilience. History Agriculturalists have long recognized that suitable rotations — such ...
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Blantyre
Blantyre () is Malawi's centre of finance and commerce, and its second largest city, with an enumerated 800,264 inhabitants . It is sometimes referred to as the commercial and industrial capital of Malawi as opposed to the political capital, Lilongwe. It is the capital of the country's Southern Region as well as the Blantyre District. History Blantyre was founded in 1876 through the missionary work of the Church of Scotland. It was named after Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, birthplace of the explorer David Livingstone. The site was chosen by Henry Henderson, who was joined there on 23 October 1876 by Dr T. T. Macklin and others. Dr Macklin took over the leadership of the mission and began the work of building; but it was not until 1878 that the first ordained minister, Rev. Duff MacDonald, joined the mission. The original missionaries, for various reasons, faced local opposition and three of them were recalled. From 1881–1898 the mission was run by David Clement ...
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Thyolo
Thyolo is a town located in the Southern Region of Malawi. It is the administrative capital of Thyolo District. Traditional Authority Mphuka in Thyolo District is one of the 10 Traditional Authorities in Thyolo District in Malawi. There are a number of non sustainable activities that communities in the area do that are detrimental to development.Bell and Morse (2003) "An opportunity that promotes capabilities of people in the present on economic, social and environment without compromising the capabilities of future generations" (p. 2). Measuring sustainability: Learning from doing. London: Earthscan Malawi being an agricultural based economy production is dependent on natural resources whose availability and stability cannot be guaranteed in the area. Livelihoods are affected by non sustainable practices such as wanton cutting down of trees, shifting cultivation, and poor agricultural practices. The drivers of deforestation and soil erosion are interrelated with growing huma ...
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Chikwawa
Chikwawa is a town with a population of 6,114 according to the 2018 census located in the Southern Region of Malawi on the west bank of the Shire River. It is the administrative capital of the Chikwawa District. Chikwawa lies almost south of Blantyre, the commercial capital of Malawi. Chikwawa, then known as Chibisa's village, was the first town in Malawi to be seen by European explorers, when visited in March 1859 by David Livingstone's second Zambesi expedition. Their way upstream was blocked by the Kapachira Falls, and they returned in August for land exploration which reached Lake Malawi on 18 September. The surrounding region was ravaged by Portuguese slave traders in the nineteenth century. The Majete Wildlife Reserve, the Mwabvi Wildlife Reserve and Lengwe National Park Lengwe National Park is a national park in Malawi located near the town of Chikwawa and about 40 miles southwest of Blantyre. Lengwe's topography is unusual for Malawi and consists of open deciduous ...
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Shire Highlands
The Shire Highlands are a plateau in southern Malawi, located east of the Shire River. It is a major agricultural area and the most densely populated part of the country. Geography The highlands cover an area of roughly 7250 square kilometers. the plateau varies in elevation from 600 to 1100 meters, with various hills and mountains rising higher. The highest peak is Zomba Mountain at 2087 meters. The highlands are bounded on the west and south by the valley of the Shire River, an extension of the African Rift Valley. The Phalombe Plain slopes gently towards Lake Chilwa to the northeast, and separates the highlands from the taller Mulanje Massif to the east. Streams originating in the highlands drain west, south, and southeast towards the Shire River, or northeast into the closed basin of Lake Chilwa. The highlands have a cooler climate and more rainfall than the surrounding lowlands, and are home to distinct forests, woodlands, and grasslands that make up the South Malawi montane ...
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Acre
The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texa ... and United States customary units#Units of area, US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square yards, or 43,560 square feet, and approximately 4,047 m2, or about 40% of a hectare. Based upon the International yard and pound, international yard and pound agreement of 1959, an acre may be declared as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres. The acre is sometimes abbreviated ac but is usually spelled out as the word "acre".National Institute of Standards and Technolog(n.d.) General Tables of Units of Measurement . Traditionally, i ...
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