Compulsory cotton cultivation collapsed once administrative pressure eased

Evidence

Recent research on the subject of forced labor in Koudougou, one of the ten circles in Upper Volta, confirms the inspectors’ findings of compulsory cash-crop cultivation in that colony after I 92 5. Koudougou was the most densely populated circle of the colony, with an estimated 350,ooo people. Between I925 and 1928, cotton production increased from 214 tons to 7 1 o tons. According to official reports, this increase resulted from administrative pressure. During the same period, millet harvest decreased from I I2,ooo to Ios,ooo tons. In I929 and I930, however, production fell dramatically to 44,250 tons and 40,000 tons. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1398

Categorization

• XREF: The cotton-up/millet-down tradeoff and collapse after 1928 is a stark data point in food-security terms; the companion research noted (Gervais, ‘Creating Hunger’) suggests a famine angle worth chasing.