Memories of the East African Groundnut Scheme, Kongwa

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In 1945, the British Parliament passed the Colonial Development and Welfare Act to deal with the social welfare needs of the colonies. Three years later, the Overseas Resources Development Act was passed. The goal of this Act was to supplement what private enterprises were already doing in the colonies. There were areas where private enterprises were not equipped or able to develop the economic resources immediately, and the Act envisioned the British tax payer helping to fund development in such places. This Act created two corporations: The Overseas Food Corporation (OFC) and the Colonial Development Corporation (CDC). The OFC was tasked with increasing world food production. One of the schemes that this corporation operated and is most remembered for is the East Africa Groundnut Scheme, Tanganyika.[1]  The colossal failure of this scheme was a big disappointment to those who had hopes in the economic potential of the resources of the colonies to power Britain through its economic crisis. It was also an embarrassment to the prestige of British science and technology.

These photos, shared by a Flickr Commons User Tony Murphy capture memories of this failed scheme.
Memories of Kongwa and the Groundnut scheme

[1] This scheme created in 1947 was taken over by the Overseas Food Corporation in April of 1948.  The project was estimated at £24 million. The scheme was in trouble by the end of 1948. The scheme was abandoned in January of 1951. Joseph Hodge, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007), 210-211.

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