African Agricultural Production, Food Trade, and the State in Southern Malawi, 1859-1940.

Since the late 1850s, Africans and white settlers in Malawi engaged in food exchange for subsistence, religious and commercial reasons. This article examines the history of this food trade to demonstrate the extent to which global forces interacted with local circumstances to shape relations among Africans, settler farmers, and states over food production and exchange between 1859 and 1940. The relations among the food stakeholders in Malawi, the study argues, were mixed, and not simply "acted upon" by international forces. Rather, there existed intricate interaction between global and the local forces that shaped the trajectory of African food trade. In their struggle for fairness, Africans drew support from missionaries, settler farmers, and Indians, who equally questioned state interference in food affairs. While the settlers so joined forces with Africans to fight against what they perceived as unfair trade, the missionaries acted as an opposition party to represent African voice in the Legislative Council. This unique relation of Africans, Indians, and white settlers over foodstuffs shed new light in the African economic historiography, which is dominated with narratives of harmonious interactions of the non-Africans at the expense of local communities and their economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]