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Somalia THE COLONIAL ECONOMY
The colonial era did not spark foreign economic investment
despite the competition of three major European powers in the
area of present-day Somalia. Italy controlled southern Somalia;
Britain northern Somalia, especially the coastal region; and
France the area that became Djibouti
(see Imperial Partition
, ch.
1). Italian parliamentary opposition restricted any government
activity in Somalia for years after European treaties recognized
Italian claims. In the early twentieth century, projects aimed at
using Somalia as a settlement for Italian citizens from the
crowded homeland failed miserably. Although in the early 1930s
Benito Mussolini drew up ambitious plans for economic
development, actual investment was modest.
There was still less investment in British Somaliland, which
India had administered. During the prime mininstership of William
Gladstone in the 1880s, it was decided that the Indian government
should be responsible for administering the Somaliland
protectorate because the Somali coast's strategic location on the
Gulf of Aden was important to India. Customs taxes helped pay for
India's patrol of Somalia's Red Sea Coast. The biggest investment
by the British colonial government in its three-quarters of a
century of rule was in putting down the rebellion of the
dervishes. In 1947, long after the dervish war of the early 1900s
(see
Mahammad Abdille Hasau's Dervish Resistance to Colonial Occupation, ch. 1),
the entire budget for the administration of the British
protectorate was only £213,139. If Italy's rhetoric concerning
Somalia outpaced performance, Britain had no illusions about its
protectorate in Somaliland. At best, the Somali protectorate had
some strategic value to Britain's eastern trading empire in
protecting the trade route to Aden and India and helping assure a
steady supply of food for Aden.
The two major economic developments of the colonial era were
the establishment of plantations in the interriverine area and
the creation of a salaried official class. In the south, the
Italians laid the basis for profitable export-oriented
agriculture, primarily in bananas, through the creation of
plantations and irrigation systems. In both the north and the
south, a stable petty bourgeois class emerged. Somalis became
civil servants, teachers, and soldiers, petty traders in coastal
cities, and small-business proprietors.
The plantation system began in 1919, with the arrival in
Somalia of Prince Luigi Amedeo of Savoy, duke of Abruzzi, and
with the technical support of the fascist administration of
Governor Cesare Maria de Vecchi de Val Cismon. The Shabeelle
Valley was chosen as the site of these plantations because for
most of the year the Shabeelle River had sufficient water for
irrigation. The plantations produced cotton (the first Somali
export crop), sugar, and bananas. Banana exports to Italy began
in 1927, and gained primary importance in the colony after 1929,
when the world cotton market collapsed. Somali bananas could not
compete in price with those from the Canary Islands, but in 1927
and 1930 Italy passed laws imposing tariffs on all non-Somali
bananas. These laws facilitated Somali agricultural development
so that between 1929 and 1936 the area under banana cultivation
increased seventeenfold to 3,975 hectares. By 1935 the Italian
government had constituted a Royal Banana Plantation Monopoly
(Regia Azienda Monopolio Banane--RAMB) to organize banana exports
under state authority. Seven Italian ships were put at RAMB's
disposal to encourage the Somali banana trade. After World War
II, when the United Nations (UN) granted republican Italy
jurisdiction over Somalia as a trust territory, RAMB was
reconstituted as the Banana Plantation Monopoly (Azienda
Monopolio Banane--AMB) to encourage the revival of a sector that
had been nearly demolished by the war.
Plantation agriculture under Italian tutelage had short-term
success, but Somali products never became internationally
competitive. In 1955 a total of 235 concessions embraced more
than 45,300 hectares (with only 7,400 hectares devoted to
bananas), and produced 94,000 tons of bananas. Under fixed
contracts, the three banana trade associations sold their output
to the AMB, which exacted an indirect tax on the Italian consumer
by keeping out cheaper bananas from other sources. The protected
Italian market was a mixed blessing for the Somali banana sector.
Whereas it made possible the initial penetration by Somali
bananas of the Italian marketplace, it also eliminated incentives
for Somali producers to become internationally competitive or to
seek markets beyond Italy.
The investment in cotton showed fewer long-term results than
the investment in bananas. Cotton showed some promise in 1929,
but its price fell following the collapse in the world market.
Nearly 1,400 tons in 1929 exports shrank to about 400 tons by
1937. During the trust period, there were years of modest
success; in 1952, for example, about 1,000 tons of cotton were
exported. There was however, no consistent growth. In 1953
exports dropped by two-thirds. Two reasons are given for cotton's
failure as an export crop: an unstable world market and the lack
of Somali wage labor for cotton harvesting. Because of the labor
scarcity, Italian concessionaires worked out coparticipation
contracts with Somali farmers; the Italians received sole
purchasing rights to the crop in return for providing seed, cash
advances, and technical support.
Another plantation crop, sugarcane, was more successful. The
sugar economy differed from the banana and cotton economies in
two respects: sugar was raised for domestic consumption, and a
single firm, the Italo-Somali Agricultural Society (Societa
Agricola Italo-Somala--SAIS), headquartered in Genoa, controlled
the sector. Organized in 1920, the SAIS estate near Giohar had,
by the time of the trust period, a little less than 2,000
hectares under cultivation. In 1950 the sugar factory's output
reached 4,000 tons, enough to meet about 80 percent of domestic
demand; by 1957 production had reached 11,000 tons, and Italian
Somaliland no longer imported sugar.
Labor shortages beset Italian concessionaires and
administrators in all plantation industries. Most Somalis refused
to work on farms for wage labor. The Italians at first
conscripted the Bantu people who lived in the agricultural
region. Later, Italian companies paid wages to agricultural
families to plant and harvest export crops, and permitted them to
keep private gardens on some of the irrigated land. This strategy
met with some success, and a relatively permanent work force
developed. Somali plantation agriculture was of only marginal
significance to the world economy, however. Banana exports
reached US$6.4 million in 1957; those of cotton, US$200,000. But
in 1957 plantation exports constituted 59 percent of total
exports, representing a major contribution to the Somali economy.
The colonial period also involved government employment of
salaried officials and the concomitant growth of a small urban
petty bourgeoisie. In the north, the British administration
originally had concentrated on the coastal area for trading
purposes but soon discovered that livestock to be traded came
from the interior. Therefore, it was necessary to safeguard
caravan routes and keep peace in port areas, requiring the
development of police forces and other civil services. In British
Somaliland, many of the nomads scorned European education and
opposed the establishment of Christian missions. Consequently,
only a small pool of literate Somalis was available to work for
the British administration. Kenyans therefore were hired. In the
south, however, Somalis sent children to colonial and mission
schools, and the graduates found civil service positions in the
police force and as customs agents, bookkeepers, medical
personnel, and teachers. These civil servants became a natural
market for new retail businesses, restaurants, and coffee shops.
Hargeysa in the precolonial period had almost no permanent
commercial establishments; by 1945, nearly 500 businesses were
registered in the district. The new salaried class filled the
ranks of the Somali nationalist movement after World War II.
Literate in Italian or English, these urban Somalis challenged
colonial rule.
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