PEASANT ECONOMY
A peasant is a person who owns or rents a small piece of lane and uses it for keeping animals growing crops etc. most of the peasants are the small holding farmers and low income earners. Others are not well educated.
The highly developed peasants were known as the “KULAKS’. The kulaks cultivated in large areas and could employ their fellow peasants.
Peasants were found in all colonies of Africa. In some colonies the colonial government discouraged peasantry in favor of settler production.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF PEASANT ECONOMY IN COLONIAL EAST AFRICA
Widely spread: The native peasants were found in all areas of Africa. It was a widely spread economy than settler and plantation economies.
Subsistence economy. The peasants mainly produced food crops (subsistence farming). When the Europeans established colonial economy, the peasants were forced to produce cash crops.
The use of family labor: Because of this the colonialist encouraged peasant production in some areas such as in Uganda. The peasants survived a reproduced themselves i.e. they produced food crops and cha crops by themselves. They were not supervised by the colonialist hence reducing the production costs to white settler (Europeans).
The productive forces remained awkward: The peasant’s major tools of productions remained to be band hoes along with axes swards etc.
Existence of KULAKS (rich peasants) who were mainly found in Buganda kingdom. The Kulaks organized themselves at the political level and formed political parties such as Kabaka Yekka (Kabaka only) in Buganda.
Nationalism. The peasants campaigned for their rights (local area nationalism) e.g. In Ghana (Gold coast) the main cash crop for the Kulaks of Ghana was cocoa.
In most cases, they were monocultural producers. They produced one major cash crop in the local area.
It was performed in the same field in which land wasn’t improved. It got exhausted without being fertilized as the white settlers did.
THE IMPACTS OF PEASANT ECONOMY IN AFRICA
It promoted monoculture production in most parts of Africa in colonial time than in the post-colonial time.
It also promoted the use of poor tools in production e.g. the hand hoes, the swords, the axes and so on.
Shifting cultivation was forbidden so people produced in permanent field hence it led to the exhaustion of land, soil erosion.
These problems were solved through terracing, destocking, forbidding deforestation laws, agricultural schemes such as Nachingwea, Urambo and Usukuma groundnuts scheme.
Poverty to the peasants. The Europeans traders purchased cash crop products from natives at a very low price which made the natives to be income earners.
Establishment of peasants associations to solve the problem of peasants. Eg. The Bukoba, Bahaya Union (BBU), Kilimanjaro Native Planters Association (KNPA) Meru Association, Mwakaleli Tea Growers in1931 etc.
The peasants financed natives’ nationalism through the contribution of funds after selling their cash crop products to the Europeans.
Colonial peasant economy integrated the natives into world capitalistic economy. They were turned to be major producers of the raw materials demanded by the European capitalists.
