ABSTRACT

Salisbury was founded in September 1890, by the Pioneer Column of white colonists and their escort of policemen from the British South Africa Company. Salisbury, more than any other African city outside South Africa, has its 'black' and 'white' areas. Grains are the most important item in the African diet, and in particular dominate meat; the European diet is more diversified, but meat is the single most important category of food and expenditure. There are recent signs of movement in Salisbury's food supply system. Retail margins in distribution, which used to be strictly controlled, are now almost entirely untouched by government intervention. Agricultural subsidies, which used almost entirely to be concentrated on rural producers, have more recently been introduced on the consumer price of some processed foods, such as beef, milk and cooking oil. This began as an everyday device by the Smith regime to restrain inflation, but has been widely extended by his successors.