Cattle in British Southern Cameroons

There is some consensus among scholars of colonial Africa that little was done in the area of scientific and technological improvements in agriculture, animal husbandry and other industrial concerns in the continent during its colonization by Europeans in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Boahen, 1989; Davidson, 1994). Without disagreeing with this perspective, which was actually true in the British African tropical empire before 1938, I add that there were numerous cases where serious attempts were made by the British and other European colonial governments during and immediately after the Second World War to introduce innovations in agriculture and stockkeeping, even if these were tied to specific interests. In East Cameroon during this period, for example, the French had boosted the production of coffee by European and African farmers through the introduction of modern innovations in the technology of coffee processing as well as marketing. ¹ Other companies in French Cameroon, including the Companie Pastorale, had achieved high marks in breeding innovations in that territory. ² In the Bamenda Grasslands of the British Southern Cameroons during and after the interwar years, the British also made great inroads in addressing the environmental and grazing challenges posed by cattle. Whereas some may argue that these were low-level initiatives, I posit that these laid the foundation for postcolonial developments in stockkeeping in the region.