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Tanganyika groundnut scheme
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==Background== In the period after the Second World War, Britain was in significant [[debt]] to the United States, facing what [[John Maynard Keynes]] termed a "financial [[Dunkirk evacuation|Dunkirk]]",<ref name="Toye 2004">{{cite journal |last1=Toye |first1=Richard |author-link1=Richard Toye |title=Churchill and Britain's 'Financial Dunkirk' |journal=[[Twentieth Century British History]] |date=2004 |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=329β360 |doi=10.1093/tcbh/15.4.329 |url=https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10036/17792/Churchill%20%20US%20loan.pdf |access-date=26 May 2019|hdl=10036/17792 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> and the [[Attlee ministry|Attlee government]] sought the [[international development|development]] 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.<ref name="Hyam 2007">{{cite book |last1=Hyam |first1=Ronald |title=Britain's Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918β1968 |date=2007 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=9780511802898 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511802898 |pages=131β6}}</ref> The government subscribed to a [[Fabian Society|Fabian]] view of colonial intervention which encouraged a proactive state role in producing primary materials and extending social benefits to colonial populations.<ref name="Esselborn 2013">{{cite journal |last1=Esselborn |first1=Stefan |title=Environment, Memory, and the Groundnut Scheme: Britain's Largest Colonial Agricultural Development Project and Its Global Legacy |journal=Global Environment |date=2013 |volume=6 |issue=11 |pages=58β93 |doi=10.3197/ge.2013.061104 |url=http://www.whpress.co.uk/GE/Articles/Esselborn.pdf |jstor=43201729 |bibcode=2013GlEnv...6...58E |access-date=26 May 2019 |archive-date=26 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826062659/http://whpress.co.uk/GE/Articles/Esselborn.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> The Tanganyika initiative represents part of a "[[Second Colonial Occupation|second colonial occupation]]" within the [[British Empire in World War II|British Empire]], characterised by economic control and technological expertise.<ref name="Darwin 2009">{{cite book |last1=Darwin |first1=John |author-link1=John Darwin (historian) |title=The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830β1970 |date=2009 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511635526 |page=559|isbn=9780511635526 }}</ref> In 1946, [[Frank Samuel]], head of the [[United Africa Company]], came up with an idea to cultivate groundnuts in Tanganyika, a British colonial territory under [[United Nations Trust Territories|UN trusteeship]], for the production of [[vegetable oil]].<ref name="Gann Duigan 1975">{{cite book |editor1-last=Gann |editor1-first=L. H. |editor2-last=Duigan |editor2-first=Peter |editor3-last=Turner |editor1-link=Lewis H. Gann |title=Colonialism in Africa 1870β1960: Volume 4: The Economics of Colonialism |date=1975 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=0-521-08641-8 |page=117 |url={{GBurl|-e88AAAAIAAJ}} |access-date=26 May 2019}}</ref> Britain remained under [[Rationing in the United Kingdom during and after World War II|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]], and in April 1946, the British government authorised a mission to visit suitable sites, led by [[John Wakefield (civil servant)|John Wakefield]], former Director of Agriculture in Tanganyika.<ref name="Anyonge 1964">{{cite thesis |last=Anyonge |first=Nathan Jumba |date=1966 |title=British Groundnut Scheme in East Africa: Labour Government's Dilemma |type=MA |publisher=[[Kansas State University]] |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33368912.pdf |access-date=26 May 2019}} {{free access}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Esselborn 2013" /> Officials began to recruit men for the "Groundnut Army" and 100,000 former soldiers volunteered for the 1,200 jobs.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Westcott|title=Imperialism and Development|pages=81}}</ref>
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