Transition in the Mozambican sugar industry: the impact of the rise and the fall of the Companhia do Buzi's and Acucareira de Mocambique's Canavieiro systems, 1963-1982
Date
2015-08-27
Authors
Mandlate, Jose Claudio
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Abstract
This report analyzes the reasons behind the adoption of out growing schemes (sistemas canavieiros) by two Mozambican sugar companies, namely the Companhia do Buzi and the Açucareira de Moçambique as well as the impacts of the companies’ decision on the mills as well as on local communities. Analyzing the adoption of out growing schemes is relevant due to the fact that the Companhia do Buzi and the Açucareira de Moçambique were the only two out of ten Mozambican sugar companies to collaborate with out growers. All the out growers were Portuguese citizens or ‘civilized’ Africans. The report also analyses the reasons and the impacts of the collapse of those schemes in the early post-colonial period. The report argues that the mills adopted out growing schemes to face the long term shortage and increasing costs of African agricultural labour. This strategy solved their problems but left the out growers indebted and frustrated and local communities dispossessed. On the collapse of the out growing schemes, the report argues that it resulted from the increasing lack of economic feasibility of sugar cane growing, which was a result of economic crisis and the authorities’ hostility towards the out growers.
Description
A research report submitted to the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities of the University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History
04 May 2015
Keywords
sugar cane, out growing, plantation, African labour