Discourse and the discipline of historical context: conservationism and ideas about development in Southern Rhodesia 1930–1950

Abstract

William Beinart's recent study of soil erosion, conservationism and ideas about development in southern Africa argues that the 'set of ideas and prescriptions associated with conservationist thinking' was a 'deeply rooted element in. . . official thinking about agrarian society in the first half of the twentieth century'. More specifically these ideas were 'invoked, elaborated and applied. . . first in relation to settler, then also peasant, agriculture' where they exercised 'considerable influence on the way in which agricultural issues in the African rural areas were identified and constructed'. 1 By contrast, this article will suggest that the roots of conservationism were far shallower in Southern Rhodesia than Beinart implies. It will also show that the 'ideas and prescriptions associated with conservationist thinking' were first put into practice in relation to peasant agriculture, not settler farming as Beinart claims. And finally it will dispute the importance ascribed to conservationism in shaping the pattern of state intervention in the Southern Rhodesian countryside. I Because the 1940s are a watershed in the agricultural history of Southern Rhodesia they constitute a useful vantage point from which to establish conservationism's significance. During this period the movement towards tobacco cultivation was so pronounced and the expansion of the domestic economy so rapid that the Colony lost its previous self-sufficiency in basic foodstuffs. Faced with its commitment to feed Empire forces and Italian prisoners of war, as well as with the difficulties of trading in wartime, the Southern Rhodesian government began to convert existing control boards into marketing boards to oversee the supply and distribution of agricultural produce. It also brought quite new areas of agricultural activity within its ambit. At