Western Colonial Influence Over Agriculture in Africa Meme

The roads in Africa did not literally go to Europe but much of the infrastructure was designed to extract raw materials and goods from African nations. Since colonization of Africa took place, Africa still faces the consequences of so called infrastructure improvements by western powers. This has led to a decrease in economic strength revolving around agriculture and trade. The trade relationships that existed between the African nations were destroyed by the infrastructure that Europeans created. New trading between African nations was difficult to foster even after the end of colonization because of the one-way direction trade routes that the infrastructure supported.

As a result of poor infrastructure, trade within Africa has been found dwindling. The African continent makes up only 1% of the global GDP, which is largely due to the lack of beneficial infrastructure that were left to them after colonization in the early 1900’s (Pottas, 3). This lack of infrastructure also led to a cut in economic growth and overall business productivity. Relating this to farmers productivity, poor infrastructure has in turn increased the costs that farmers must pay to produce their crops. However, with infrastructure hindering transportation of produced goods, farmers are unable to return profits as they have no way to get their goods to the market. In the end, this drives up the costs of African goods and makes them uncompetitive in the global market (Gajigo and Lukoma, 2).

This is a result of western powers not wanting Africa to develop and depend on them. For example, cotton cloth was one of Africa’s main imports, but its main export was raw cotton. This trade with Europe shows that Africa’s technology wasn’t developed and Europe did nothing to help besides sell them the products of their exports. This shows the dependency on western powers that Africa had.

These colonizers took advantage of this dependency to dominate Africa and control trade. As Porter and Sheppard reiterate, “the proportions of trade directed to former colonies metropoles is very high in many cases, showing how difficult it is for a country that produces few tradeable commodities (be they minerals or crops) to break out of historic trading relationships” (Porter and Sheppard, 335). Most trade was directed for the western powers’ profit and if Africans did not produce and trade what they wanted then the western powers wouldn’t trade with them. If they did trade, however, they had to keep trading or they would be ditched. In fact, less than 10% of trade in west Africa was with other African countries (Hrituleac, 15). Another example of Africa’s dependency and western power regulation is that making a phone call from Kabale, in Uganda, to Bukavu, 195 kilometers away, has to be routed to London before getting to Bukavu (Porter and Sheppard, 335). Western powers bended African trade and infrastructure to their will.