The Political Economy of Irrigation Development and Peasant Food Production in Colonial Malawi, 1945–1961

Abstract

This article explores the development of irrigation farming in Malawi from 1945 to 1961. It traces the origins of irrigation farming, strategies for its promotion, and the challenges that impinged on its success in colonial Malawi. In particular, it demonstrates the extent to which externally driven colonial agricultural developments like irrigation failed to achieve their intended purpose when paternalistic authorities implemented them without paying attention to existing local knowledge and context. Exclusively posed as the all-knowing champion of development, the colonial state in Malawi looked down upon existing wisdom regarding appropriate locations, climatic variabilities, ecological diversity, flooding histories, and local tastes. In the face of inadequate resources, and the growing nationalism of the late 1950s, the state could not effectively maintain its drive for irrigation farming.