‘The Native is the Producer of the Future’: Improving Peasants’ Food Production in Southern Malawi, 1859–1939

Abstract

Since the late 1850s, Malawi has seen various attempts by missionaries, settler farmers and administrators to transform peasant agriculture in the face of ecological, political and economic challenges. However, attempts to improve peasants’ food production have received little attention in the Malawian and regional historiography. Here I explore the interventions that the colonial state and other European actors made to improve peasants’ food production in southern Malawi from 1859 to 1939. I argue that, while colonialism disrupted rural livelihoods, it brought with it efforts to improve the practices by which peasants produced foodstuffs. The success of these efforts, however, was mixed and largely limited by the derogatory beliefs that colonial officials developed about African practices and the state’s inability to take into account local context and history. In particular, negative attitudes towards African producers undermined the legitimacy and acceptability of the interventions among the peasants during the period under study.