ABSTRACT
With the establishment of the Overseas Food Corporation and the Colonial Development Corporation in 1947 (Chapter 10), the British government for the first time moved into direct production of commodities in the tropical colonies. Faced with a severe shortage of primary products, the long-term nature of colonial development and welfare schemes and an apparent failure of private enterprise – whether expatriate or indigenous – to lift output quickly, the state became a producer in addition to carrying out its more traditional tasks of building infrastructure and providing economic and social services.
