The last blog offered a brief overview of different churches across our study sites. This second blog in this series focuses on their role in agriculture and markets, and more broadly rural livelihoods. Given their different histories, forms of organisation, finance and religious beliefs different churches’ influence is quite varied.
The modernising mission
As discussed previously, the missionary churches that dominated in the colonial era were committed to a vision of elite, technically ‘modern’ African farming. This was often central to the paternalistic form of development offered through vocational training and an array of ‘development’ projects.
The famed American Methodist ‘native instructor’, E.D. Alvord, proclaimed a ‘Gospel of the Plow’ in his book. He was influential in framing agricultural policies from the 1927 onwards when an extension programme was established by the state, with many of his ideas being central to support for ‘native agriculture’ for decades…
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Green Ankh Works 