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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Deceived by African Cotton: The British Cotton Growing Association and the Demise of the Lancashire Textile Industry |
Author: | Onyeiwu, Steve |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | African Economic History |
Volume: | 20 |
Pages: | 89-121 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Africa Great Britain |
Subjects: | colonialism cotton History and Exploration Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3601650 |
Abstract: | The British Cotton Growing Association (BCGA), formed in 1902 to encourage the cultivation, improvement, and export of cotton from Africa to Britain, was one of the notable organizations involved in raw material procurement from Africa. A major objective of the BCGA was to ascertain how far it was possible for the British Empire to produce cotton required for the British mills. The BCGA concentrated on the following African countries: Nigeria, Egypt, Uganda, Sudan, Nyasaland (Malawi), Tanganyika (Tanzania), and South Africa. Its strategies to encourage cotton production included price incentives, financial assistance, technical advice, and the provision of free seeds. The BCGA encountered various problems, such as competition from the local textile industries, preference among farmers for cash crops such as cocoa, peanuts and tobacco, financial problems, and tenacious nationalism and anti-British fervour in Egypt, the country whose cotton was most sought after because of its quality. Although the BCGA was successful in its main mission of boosting the production of cotton in the British colonies, this did not prevent the demise of the British textile industry. The article argues that while the quest for cotton may have served the interests of individual textile producers, it diverted the attention of the industry away from embarking on industry-wide investments in the basic research that could have encouraged technical change at the level of the firm. Notes, ref. |