Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme

The Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme, or East Africa Groundnut Scheme, was a failed attempt by the British government to cultivate tracts of Tanganyika (modern-day Tanzania) with peanuts. Launched in the aftermath of World War II by the administration of prime minister Clement Attlee, the project was finally abandoned as unworkable in 1951 at considerable cost.

The fact that the region's terrain and rainfall were totally inappropriate for growing groundnuts, as well as the project's ultimate cost and failure, led to the scheme being popularly seen as a symbol of government failure in late colonial Africa.

In 1946, Frank Samuel, head of the United Africa Company, a subsidiary of Unilever, came up with an idea to cultivate groundnuts in the British trusteeship of Tanganyika (now mainland Tanzania) for the production of vegetable oil. Britain was still under World War II rationing and short of cooking fats. He suggested the idea to his contacts in the British government.

In April 1946, the British government authorised a mission to visit suitable sites. The team was led by John Wakefield, former Director of Agriculture in Tanganyika. After a three-month mission, the team's report was optimistically favourable to the scheme. Wakefield believed that the main reason for the apparent barrenness of Tanganyika was local primitive farming practices that would be easily solved by Western equipment. The government, with the lead of Minister of Food John Strachey, eventually authorised £25 million to cultivate 150,000 acres (607 km²) of scrubland in six years. They began to recruit men for the "Groundnut Army" and 100,000 former soldiers volunteered. The first site selected for cultivation was in Kongwa in the central Tanganyika where locals had already cultivated groundnuts. Strachey chose an old political colleague, Leslie Plummer, to be Chairman of the Overseas Food Corporation.

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