The Movement for Freedom in Mozambique - Page 5.
of cotton as it has been carried out since the forties has tended
to be imposed from above by the government under the pressure of
the big concessionary companies.  The manner in which this is
done is best described by Professor Marvin Harris in his monograph
entitled Portugal's African Wards (1958), thus:
"In this modern serfdom, the role of the medieval lord is
exercised by twelve Portuguese companies, each of which has received monopolistic concessions over cotton production in vast
areas of Mozambique.  Indigenas within the concession areas of
each company are assigned cotton acreage by the administrative
authorities.  They have no choice in the matter and must plant,
cultivate and harvest cotton wherever they are told.  Then they
must sell the raw cotton to the concession company of their area
at prices which are fixed by the government far below those
available on the international market....In 1956, there v/ere
519,000 African cultivators participating in the cotton campaign.
...the actual number of men, women and children being forced to
plant cotton (on acreage taken out of food production) probably
exceeds one million.  In 1956, the 519,000 sellers received an
average of &11.17 per person as their family's reward for an entire
year of work."
This system of agriculture, while it enriches the coffers of
the European companies which directly profit from it, has a direct
and often disastrous effect on a large proportion of the African
population.  Its effect is felt not only in the recurrent famines
which debilitate the lives of millions of Africans, but during
the planting, cultivating and harvesting periods, the average
African is under constant persecution by the Portuguese administration police, v/ho comb every African home, drive out every man,
woman and child to the cotton fields every day, in order to make
certain that during this period nobody does anything else but
work in cotton.  Often those who are caught working in their
other crops are threatened, beaten or even arrested and sent to
the local "chefe de posto" or administrator where they are treated
as criminals, consequently being beaten with the feared "palmatoria",
The other major cash yielding crop in Mozambique is, as
mentioned above, rice,  as v/ith ^otton, the production of rice is
regulated by the same rules.  It is the big concessionary companies
which finally profit from the system.  African farmers are forced
to sell every pound of the rice they produce during the year, even
if their own families have to starve later in the season.  If
they have to buy it back, they are forced to pay several times
more than they were paid for it.