Agricultural History Review, Volume 64 Part 1 (2016), pp. 81–102

Anxious to diversify the economy towards white agriculture and to market the young colony as an attractive destination for prospective white immigrants, the British South Africa Company-run government presented Southern Rhodesia as a cattle-man’s country. Dairy farming, it announced, would form an important adjunct to the colonial economy and play a vital role in its larger imperial ambitions. This article explores the development of commercial dairying in Southern Rhodesia from the announcement of the White Agricultural policy in 1908 to the passage of the Dairy Act in 1937. Despite state propaganda, we demonstrate that the dairy industry did not develop along professional lines during this period due to a suite of environmental, financial and technical factors. Instead, it grew mainly as an ad hoc industry resorted to out of desperation. Although Southern Rhodesia had begun to participate actively in the external butter markets by the mid-1920s, we argue that this should not be construed to mean the dairy industry had come of age, but was merely a reflection of developments in the beef industry and the limited market for dairy products locally. 

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