The Colonial Coffee Compulsion Marketing Policies in Kilimanjaro Tanzania

Abstract

This is a historical study that utilises primary evidences from Tanzania National Archives (TNA) to examine the compulsion marketing policies of the Wachagga, the small-scale native coffee producers in the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro aimed to fill a knowledge gap in the existing literature which tends to ignore. Importantly, this is a shift from some authors who attempted to document the policy by reliance on the colonial authority’s sources that proved bias and distorting. This therefore, is primarily to contribute to a new knowledge and understanding of the policies. The policies imposed by the Tanzania’s colonial authority under Section 36 of the 1932 co-operative legislation that, the colonial authority, was doubtful to employ and enforce it given the fact the settlers were trapped just the same as the native growers who were compelled to sell their coffee through a native organisation, the Kilimanjaro Native Co-operative Union (KNCU). Instead, in 1934 a new legislation, the Chagga Rule was passed by the Chagga Council which was the Native Authority to compel only native growers to sell coffee on the one hand and to exclude European planters on the other. In 1937 the native growers resisted and rioted against the legislation and demanded to sell their produce in the free market as they established that the legislation was not in their favour due to poor price paid to them. In response,  the colonial authority revoked the Chagga Rule, but increased their grip over native produced coffee through the Native Coffee (Control and Marketing) Ordinance, 1937, which became integral part of the marketing policy and granted the Moshi Native Coffee Board (MNCB) and Kilimanjaro Native Co-operative Union (KNCU) monopoly over the native produced coffee.

Keywords: Kilimanjaro, coffee, marketing, Wachagga, co-operatives