NOTE FOLLOWING A VISIT TO SOME AFRICAN FARMING AREAS IN SOUTHERN RHODESIA
| Published date | 01 April 1955 |
| Date | 01 April 1955 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1955.tb00089.x |
| Author | C. Winnington‐Ingram |
68
JOURNAL
OF
AFRICAN
ADMINISTRATION
central Congo basin where livestock are unimportant in farming.
It
is pointed
out
that
the close juxtaposition of families in villages
may
lead to more causes
of
petty
quarrels, marital infidelity,
and
litigation; an effect which is also said
to have been found in some small concentration schemes for the Mankoya
people in Northern Rhodesia.
Southern Rhodesia has also moved considerably towards the concentration
of rural population.
In
the schemes for "centralization" of native reserves,
which have been carried out for many years past, separate arable
and
grazing
areas are demarcated, and belts for habitation are surveyed along the boundaries
of
the
arable areas. Small townships have also been established
at
strategic
points, with
the
deliberate intention of creating opportunities for full-time
employment for Africans as traders, butchers, eating-house keepers
and
so on
without the necessity for them to farm as well to supplement their income.
The government seems satisfied with the results as it has continued with the
schemes;
but
no social study of the effects of the new organisation appears to
have been published.
An interesting
and
significant case came to my notice in the Sudan, on
the
Alyab irrigation scheme in
the
Northern Province. The population of this
area
had
always been accustomed to live in villages,
but
the
officialsin charge
of
the
scheme
had
insisted on them each building a house on their own holdings,
as being more conducive to good farming. In 1946 a great flood destroyed all
their houses, and when rebuilding could be done the cultivators insisted on
building their houses in concentrated villages.
These examples show
that
if
African populations are to be resettled in
villages, there are many problems which require consideration; and
that
it may
not
always be easy to persuade apopulation, accustomed to one form of settle-
ment, to change its way of life.
NOTE FOLLOWING AVISIT TO SOME AFRICAN
FARMING AREAS IN SOUTHERN RHODESIA
By
C. Winnington-Ingram,
M.B.E.,
Lands Commissioner, Nyasaland,
formerly District Officer, Kondoa, Tanganyika
FOR an administrative officer from
East
Africa who is interested in African
land problems, there can be few more stimulating places to visit
than
Southern
Rhodesia. During a local leave early this year I was enabled through the kind-
ness of the Southern Rhodesia Native Affairs Department to spend some four
days in different native areas talking to and being shown round by field officers.
There was so much
that
was new to me
but
directly relevant to our own land
problems
that
I have discounted the necessarily superficial nature of my
impressions
and
have tried to
put
on record for the benefit of some of those who
may
have been as ignorant as I was
the
principal things
that
struck me.
First there are general impressions. There seemed, by Tanganyika stan-
dards, to be very few signs of serious erosion. Most of the rivers one crossed,
and there were
many
of them, flowed with clear uncoloured water; there was
little silt in the stream beds; and only in few places did one see those extensive
areas of bare land which always accompany over-stocking. On the other hand,
in
both
European
and
African areas which incidentally intermingle with one
another agreat deal, there was much evidence of a real conservation conscious-
ness.
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