Forced cotton cultivation tripled output while millet and later cotton collapsed
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
Category: Factual Claims
- SHARE: Great concrete datapoint for anyone writing about forced cash-crop labor and food insecurity in colonial Africa.
Related
- Compulsory cotton cultivation collapsed once administrative pressure eased (similarity 0.92)
- Forced cotton cultivation in Upper Volta collapsed food production and then itself (similarity 0.90)
- Forced collective cotton cultivation in Upper Volta displaced Africans’ own food crops (similarity 0.81)
- Forced labor drained Upper Volta of thousands of workers annually (similarity 0.80)
- Forced labor continued on roads and grew with cotton cultivation in the 1920s (similarity 0.79)