PEANUTS IN THEIR LAPS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 537, 7 October 1949, Page 17

PEANUTS IN THEIR LAPS

"THE peanut vendors" is the name "given in the bars of Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam to the men who work on the Tanganyika Groundnuts Scheme, one of the greatest pioneering adventures of modern times. The scheme has certainly not lacked publicity since its inception. Questions have been asked in

the House of Commons; newspaper men. have visited Tanganyika and sent back reports. There was some praise and alot of criticism, but until the BBC. decided to send a man out there, few of ‘those actually

working on the scheme had much of @ chence to say what they thought. Last year Leonard Cottrell flew out to Kongwa, the headquarters of the scheme, with a BBC engineer and half a ton of recording equipment, and recorded statements by and interviews. with scores of people-not only high officials like Dr. Hugh Bunting, the forceful scientific adviser, and D. L. Martin, the agricultural manager, but field assistants, tractor operators, native workers, and the wives of the groundnutters who are sharing the primitive life with their husbands. The 60-minute programme he built up from these recordings, New Pioneers in Africa: First Year at Kongwa, will be broadcast from 3YA at 9.30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 11. It describes the progress made from the arrival of the advance party in 1947, when Kongwa was a native village surrounded by» bush, until the time when 7,500 acres of bush had been cleared and planted. Trouble with an unhealthy climate, insect pests, and the tough vegetation, as well as the second hand machinery that had to be used, transformed the task into a difficult but exciting adventure. In a second programme, You're on the Beam, Leonard Cottrell describes the work done by a Lancaster Squadron of the R.A.F., which is surveying by aerial

photography vast areas of British Colonial territory in Africa, to assist in their economic development. Such maps as exist are largely inaccurate, being made up to some extent from travellers’ tales. This programme is not too technical, according to Cottrell, but is primarily a story of human achievementof new pioneering in Africa. Some of the scenes were recorded near Nairobi, and others in flight over Northern Kenya. You're on the Beam will be broadcast from 1YA at 2.0 pm on Sunday, October 16.