Structural Transformation of East African Agriculture and Agricultural Marketing Organizations (1968)

Many scholars have attempted to analyze the economy of the underdeveloped areas as a dual structure consisting of a modern or money economy, and a subsitsence or traditional economy. East African economy can be analyzed in this way, although it is necessary to devise a new definition of dual structure which suits the actual situation existing in East Africa. East African economy has been and is based primarily on Agriculture, and this study attempts to analyze the dual structure of East African Agriculture.The settlement of Europeans in East Africa, especially in Kenya, had a strong impact on the traditional African agricultural economy. The colonial governments of East Africa, namely Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika, had adopted the so-called ‘dual policy’ by the middle of the 1920's, which aimed at developing both the European settlers' economy and African economy. However, due to the political pressures exerted by the European settler community and the metropolitan British firms which developed plantations in East Africa, favorable treatment was often given them by the colonial governments. These included provisions to obtain African laborers for large European farms, prohibition against planting certain types of crops by African peasants such as coffee in Kenya, and preferential treatment through the agricultural marketing mechanisms.Non-African (mostly European) agriculture can be devided into agricultures for export and agriculture for domestic markets. The agriculture for export typically had the plantation type of organizations with strong ties with large British merchant firms. They were in a strong position as they could utilize large capital raised in Britain. The agriculture for domestic markets was usually composed of smaller farms than plantations, which were individually-owned. They were often protected by high import tariffs as in the case of wheat-growing farmers. Maize and dairy products were first exported, but after the Great Depression of the early 1930's, their products were almost completely directed towards the East African domestic market. European Farmers Associations were sometimes given monopolistic rights to deal with these commodities.African small land-holders (peasants) in Uganda and in some parts of Tanganyika, and in the much smaller area of Kenya, were encouraged to grow cash crops such as cotton, coffee and tobacco for exports. The governments have often intervened in their marketing organizations, especially in order to control Asian (Indian) traders dealing with these commodities. Marketing systems for these export crops produced by African peasants are now quite well organized, and some improvements in the production techniques have been achieved such as the use of insecticides and the practice of pruning. In this sense the export crop sector can be called the modern sector within the peasant farming systems. However almost all these peasants who grow export crops also grow food crops to fulfil their own subsistence needs. The traditional nature of this subsistence farming has been reinforced by the colonial governments' policy of “diatrict self-sufficiency.” The method of farming these food crops has not been changed and has remained quite inefficient. It has been a dragon the modernization of African peasant. agriculture.The agriculture of East Africa is therefore composed of a pair of dual structures. On the one hand is a non-African agriculture which is devided into an export agriculture of the plantation type and an agriculture for domestic market with a large number of individually owned farms protected with high tariffs or other methods of import restrictions. On the other hand is an African peasant agriculture which can be devided into an export crop sector and a food crop sector. In the case of the non-African agriculture the two sectors are devided into different bodies of farming organizations, but in the case of African agriculture the expor