The Tanganyika groundnut scheme, or East Africa groundnut scheme, was a failed attempt by the British government to cultivate tracts of its African trust territory

Tanganyika Tanganyika may refer to: Places * Tanganyika Territory (1916–1961), a former British territory which preceded the sovereign state * Tanganyika (1961–1964), a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania * Tanzania Main ...

(now part of

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

) with

peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...

s. Launched in the aftermath of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

by the Labour Party administration of prime minister

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...

, the goal was to produce urgently needed oilseeds on a projected 3 million acres (5,000 sq miles, or over 1 million hectares) of land, in order to increase margarine supplies in Britain and develop a neglected backwater of the British Empire. Despite an enormous effort and at a cost of £36 million (equivalent to over £1 billion in 2020 value), the project was a disastrous failure and was finally abandoned as unworkable in 1951. The scheme's proponents, including Minister of Food John Strachey, had overlooked warnings that the environment and rainfall were unsuitable, communications were inadequate, and the whole project was being pursued with excessive haste. The management, initially by the United Africa Company as Managing Agent and subsequently by the government-run Overseas Food Corporation, was appalling, and the scheme came to be popularly seen as a symbol of government incompetence and failure in late colonial Africa. The scheme was described in 1953 as "the worst fiasco in recent British colonial history."

Background

In the period after the Second World War, Britain was in significant debt to the United States, facing what

John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...

termed a "financial

Dunkirk Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France. and the Labour government sought the

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development hell, when a project is stuck in development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting *Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped * Photograph ...

of imperial territories to minimise their financial reliance upon the United States. Increasing the cultivation of food supplies in colonial territories, both for local consumption and export, was a central component of this strategy. Moreover, the new Labour government subscribed to a Fabian view of colonial intervention which encouraged a proactive state role in producing primary materials and extending social benefits to colonial populations. The Tanganyika initiative represents part of a " second colonial occupation" within the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

, characterised by economic control and technological expertise. In 1946,

Frank Samuel Frank Samuel (1889–1954) was a British businessman, inventor and philanthropist who was a managing director and later chairman of the United Africa Company (UAC). Life Samuel was born into a family that ran a music business, the business manufac ...

, head of the

United Africa Company The United Africa Company (UAC) was a British company which principally traded in West Africa during the 20th century. The United Africa Company was formed in 1929 as a result of the merger of The Niger Company, which had been effectively owne ...

, came up with an idea to cultivate groundnuts in Tanganyika, a British colonial territory under

UN trusteeship The United Nations Trusteeship Council (french: links=no, Conseil de tutelle des Nations unies) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, established to help ensure that trust territories were administered in the best interests ...

, for the production of

vegetable oil Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of fruits. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, or fat ...

. Britain remained under World War II rationing and was short of cooking oils and fats, and especially margarine. He presented the idea to John Strachey, the

Minister of Food The Minister of Food Control (1916–1921) and the Minister of Food (1939–1958) were British government ministerial posts separated from that of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Minister of Agriculture. In the Great War the Minist ...

, and in April 1946, the British government authorised a mission to visit suitable sites, led by John Wakefield, former Director of Agriculture in Tanganyika. After a three-month mission, the team's report in September 1946 was optimistically favourable to the scheme and recommended the cultivation of 3.21 million acres for groundnuts by 1952. The Cabinet approved the recommendations in January 1947, and began transporting personnel and machinery to Tanganyika. Officials began to recruit men for the "Groundnut Army" and 100,000 former soldiers volunteered for the 1,200 jobs.

Cultivation

The advance party set up camp at

Kongwa Kongwa District is one of the seven districts of the Dodoma Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the north by Manyara Region, to the east by Morogoro Region, to the south by Mpwapwa District, and to the west by Chamwino District. Its district ca ...

, not far from

Dodoma Dodoma ( in Gogo), officially Dodoma City, is the national capital of Tanzania and the capital of the Dodoma Region, with a population of 410,956. In 1974, the Tanzanian government announced that the capital would be moved to Dodoma for social a ...

(now the capital of Tanzania), and scouted out the area. They deemed it suitable for groundnuts despite the large amount of clay and the local shortage of water, and established the scheme's headquarters there. Gradually a whole town was established, known locally as 'Half London', as half the population of London seemed to wash up there over time. Obtaining the heavy equipment necessary to clear the land for cultivation, however proved difficult. Eventually, the project managers found some suitable

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...

s and

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

s from Canada and bought up U.S.

Army surplus Military surplus are goods, usually matériel, that are sold or otherwise disposed of when held in excess or are no longer needed by the military. Entrepreneurs often buy these goods and resell them at surplus stores. Usually the goods sold by t ...

tractors from the Philippines, though many proved to be too rusted to use. These then had to be transported through the

Port of Dar es Salaam The Port of Dar es Salaam is the principal port serving Tanzania. The port is one of three ocean ports in the country and handles over 90% of the country's cargo traffic. According to the International Association of Ports and Harbors, it is the fo ...

, which became hopelessly congested, to the inland site using the only available transport, a single-track railway with steam locomotives. A sudden flood of the Kinyansungwe River wiped out part of the rail tracks, leaving a dirt road as the only means of transport. This delayed the arrival of the bulldozers needed for clearing until April 1947. Even then, the bush proved far harder to clear than the planners had expected. Besides the natural hazards of local wildlife (on several occasions workers had to face angry

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...

s and

rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...

), they found the large local

baobab ''Adansonia'' is a genus made up of eight species of medium-to-large deciduous trees known as baobabs ( or ). They are placed in the Malvaceae family, subfamily Bombacoideae. They are native to Madagascar, mainland Africa, and Australia.Tropic ...

trees were hard to remove, a task made more difficult by one of them being a local tribal jail, another a site of

ancestor worship The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of t ...

, and many had bees' nests in their hollow trunks. Several workers were hospitalised with vicious bee stings. But the main casualties were the heavy machines. By the end of the summer of 1947, two-thirds of the imported tractors had been rendered unusable. Bulldozer blades that were used to extract ground roots were ruined in a couple of days. In the spirit of 'making do', the scheme bought up surplus

Sherman tank } The M4 Sherman, officially Medium Tank, M4, was the most widely used medium tank by the United States and Western Allies in World War II. The M4 Sherman proved to be reliable, relatively cheap to produce, and available in great numbers. It w ...

s and got the

Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in 18 ...

engineering company to take the armour off and put a bulldozer blade on the front, creating what were known as " shervicks"—but these too proved no match for the African bush. Eventually, in the wooded Southern Province, they discovered that a long chain linked between two bulldozers would flatten all the trees in between, while a third bulldozer was used to overturn any trees that resisted the chain. The first order for a suitable ship's anchor chain from London was, however, cancelled by the managers in London because they thought it was a joke. In September 1947, the African workers joined a nationwide strike for three days; the expatriate staff were less than delighted to have to do their own cooking. A growing number of Africans were then employed as tractor drivers and, after early errors, became skilled at the job. With great difficulty, the Groundnut Army was finally able to plant the first nuts. When the rainy season arrived, some of the workshops and stores were swept away by a flash flood. After that, the hot season baked the ground clay into a hard surface that made harvesting the nuts very difficult.

Takeover and railway construction

In February 1948, the United Africa Company handed over responsibility for the project to the newly formed Overseas Food Corporation (OFC). It sent a new manager, Major-General Desmond Harrison, to the site. He found the scheme in a state of chaos, and immediately tried to instil some military discipline, which did not endear him to the workers, but subsequently retreated to his tent to concentrate on copious paperwork in a vain effort to contain the spiralling costs. Late in the year he was ordered back home on sick leave. In 1949, the Kongwa region was struck by a terrible drought, which decimated the crop. After two years, only 2,000 tons of groundnuts were harvested, less than had been imported as seed, and an attempt to grow

sunflower The common sunflower (''Helianthus annuus'') is a large annual forb of the genus ''Helianthus'' grown as a crop for its edible oily seeds. Apart from cooking oil production, it is also used as livestock forage (as a meal or a silage plant), as ...

s instead proved futile as they were even more susceptible to drought. The scheme's managers therefore began to focus attention on the more fertile regions in the west and south of Tanganyika, but the development of both was proving painfully slow. In the south, not only was a whole new railway line needed, but a deep-water port had to be constructed from scratch at

Mtwara Mtwara (Portuguese: ''Montewara'') is the capital city of Mtwara Region in southeastern Tanzania. In the 1940s, it was planned and constructed as the export facility for the disastrous Tanganyika groundnut scheme, but was somewhat neglected when t ...

. The Southern Province Railway was constructed first in order to transport the crops, but never had any to transport and was later dismantled. The original target of 3 million acres was reduced to 150,000 acres (607 km²) and then to 50,000 acres (202 km²). In the end only 47,000 were ever cleared. By late 1949, the scheme was coming in for robust criticism in Parliament and the press. The Labour Government persevered, but suffered for it at the election in 1950 and even more when they lost the

1951 United Kingdom general election The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held twenty months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats. The Labour government called a snap election for Thursday 25 October 1951 ...

. Just before that, in January 1951, they finally cancelled the project, the Treasury writing off a total of £36.5 million—equivalent in 2020 to over £1 billion. Mechanised production was stopped, and the cleared land handed over to African farmers, who did a better job growing tobacco, cashew nuts and herding cattle.

Cultural references

The failed plan became the topic of a parody of United Kingdom

Legalese Legal writing involves the analysis of fact patterns and presentation of arguments in documents such as legal memoranda and briefs. One form of legal writing involves drafting a balanced analysis of a legal problem or issue. Another form of legal ...

. Its full title is the "Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order". The alleged abstract of the act reads: "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)". However, no reference for this alleged act is ever cited in sources quoting the above abstract and it must be assumed to be a joke. It is said to have been a creation of the UK satirical magazine,

Private Eye ''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satire, satirical and current affairs (news format), current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely r ...

References

External links

The Tanganyikan Groundnuts Scheme
Tanganyika (territory) Agriculture in Tanzania Economic history of Tanzania Political scandals in the United Kingdom 1940s economic history 1940s in Africa Peanuts History of agriculture Incompetence 1940s in Tanganyika 1946 in Tanganyika 1951 in Tanganyika United Africa Company