The Groundnut Scheme

I have once again dug out and re-read an old book, one which belonged to my parents. It describes one of those all-too-common and best-forgotten projects into which, despite clear warnings, governments pour millions of pounds and which, inevitably, go horribly wrong - events far from here at this present time are a fine example.

This one involved a good idea - to grow peanuts on a vast scale, some 5,000 square miles, in Tanganyika, a little-developed part of our Empire, to provide vegetable oils desperately needed in places like Britain and, incidentally, to develop the local economy. At the time, 1947, the UK was still rationing food following the end of the war and wanted to be more independent of the US for food supplies. The first of three areas to be developed was near Kongwa in the centre of the country.

The machines to be used were a good example of the multiple problems that arose. In my father's 'Life' my mother wrote, "The first tractors [old US army bulldozers] arrived from the Philippines on a ship into Dad's African Mercantile Company and the captain wirelessed in that he wanted a Lloyds' Survey as several of the machines had broken loose in the hold. The captain told Dad that the tractors had been taken off the invasion beaches, painted yellow and shipped, and some were so rusty he doubted if they would be of any use - he was right."

The problems multiplied. "They were very doubtful about the proposed area as rainfall was a problem and it had not been surveyed properly. When the clearing started Wagogo villages were found and had to be relocated. The area was thickly forested, partly with baobab trees which proved most difficult to uproot. To speed things up chains were stretched between tractors - see picture - and they drove through the trees uprooting the easier ones. Ploughing turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated as the soil had a large amount of mica in it and this wore out the ploughs very fast. Dad had a very worrying time...."

Huge workshops had to be built and equipped out in the bush. Over a thousand men came from the UK to work on the scheme and they, along with more thousands of local staff, had to be housed, fed and paid. Communications were primitive, the port at Dar-es-Salaam became hopelessly congested, and the rains, as predicted, failed. Management was poor: no-one was sure whether it should be military or civilian style, and it was managed from afar - London. Also, "Supplies of food became difficult in Dar with the great influx of people, milk being one of the big problems and only people with children got fresh milk, from Temeki Dairy. Vegetables were another problem."

By 1949 the scheme was admitted to be a disaster. £36 million (£1 billion in today's money) had been spent and fewer peanuts produced than had been shipped out as seed. The land was handed over to local African farmers who set about growing tobacco and cashew nuts, and herding cattle.