Snapshots of Simba Farm

As Higgs arrived in Tanzania (then named Tanganyika) in 1948, he photographed Mount Kilimanjaro from the seat of his plane. Although he didn’t live there, preferring to visit when he could, his investment at Simba Farm would last 12 years, ending in 1960. He died shortly after this in 1963.

Higgs’ UK farming businesses were inherited by his niece, Elizabeth Creak. After her passing, a charitable trust was established in her name, which today funds professorial chairs at five agricultural universities. The logo of the Elizabeth Creak Trust depicts the road to Simba with Kilimanjaro beyond.

In the UK, Clyde Higgs was an influential champion for the mechanisation of agriculture, the dissemination of new practices, and European interventions in global agriculture.

In the late-1940s, Higgs became a keen advocate of the Tanganyikan Groundnut Scheme, a plan by the colonial government to mechanise farming across large tracts of East Africa.

The Groundnut Scheme inspired Higgs not because he wanted to grow groundnuts, but because he found the wider project of tropical agriculture “fascinating, yet unpredictable.”

When Higgs arrived at Simba Farm, the farm was still using oxen belonging to his European predecessors.

Higgs invested in tractorisation, bringing in light machinery to cultivate existing fields, and heavy D2 Caterpillar crawlers to break new ground.

Today, an old manure spreader (originally drawn by oxen) remains at Simba, along with an International Harvester ‘brush breaker’ plough, likely purchased during Higgs’ time.

At the time of Higgs’ arrival, the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme represented the ideal of modern colonial farming. Yet this project fell apart in 1951, due to poor access to machine parts and shortages of skilled labour.

At Simba Farm, Higgs had his own heavy duty gantry for onsite repairs. This facility was important because it didn’t take much for equipment to break in remote places where land was being cultivated for the very first time.

Similar maintenance challenges remain at Simba Farm today, evidenced by a gantry not far from the original site.

Higgs saw land uncultivated by settler farmers as ‘virgin ground’ and native peoples as ‘copyists’, incapable of developing effective farm systems of their own. These racist views were used to justify the ongoing appropriation of land and labour.

Higgs christened one newly ploughed field ‘Romany’. This was a reference to Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller peoples in Europe, whose histories and experiences of hardship were emblematic of similar processes of marginalisation around land and access.

Today, many indigenous people are marginalised from decisions about land around the globe, including in Tanzania.

Higgs quickly learned about the precariousness of power supplies and resources at Simba Farm.

Within this engine room, a water turbine generated the farm’s electricity, as it had done since before his arrival. The water flowed from a spring six miles away, with open channels at risk of damage by elephants.

Today, the family that owns Simba Farm uses the engine room as a garden shed. Climate change continues to exacerbate challenges around resources, especially water.

Higgs was critical of local breeds and skills. His photographs included many images of prize imported bulls.

He admitted that, ‘with patience’, some locals could be good cattlemen, claiming ‘nomads’ were best. Yet he qualified this by noting their approach and values were far removed from his own. This was a reference to Maasai herders, whom he criticised for overgrazing.

Today, tensions still exist between farmers and local Maasai communities.

Higgs described the cattle he kept initially as ‘not-so-near Ayrshires’, explaining that they were there to clear the land of ticks and make way for a pedigree herd brought from his UK farm.

In spite of the local preference for soured milk, Higgs seemed positive there was a place for sterile, European-style dairying practice.

The milking parlour and dairy at Simba are no longer in use and the cattle raised at Simba today are Borans, an East African breed kept mainly for beef.

Cattle disease was of major concern amongst East African colonists. Outbreaks of rinderpest and East Coast Fever decimated cattle in several regions, causing famines.

One technique that European settlers favoured for preventing disease was cattle dipping. This involved immersing the cattle in pesticides.

A cattle dip was built at Simba Farm during the period of German colonisation. It was still in use during Higgs’ time. However, Maasai herders often resisted the process as they did not like hitting cattle to get them into the dip and many believed dipping was risky.

Simba Farm straddles a boundary between forested foothills traditionally occupied by Chagga people and Maasai homeland to the west, where livestock-rearing pastoralists reside.

Higgs criticised these communities and he hired labourers from elsewhere, meaning that the workers attending this roll call by the stables were probably not local.

Today, Simba Farm supports a workforce comprised of local Chagga people and skilled seasonal labourers from elsewhere.

Higgs distanced himself from indigenous knowledge. He celebrated “natives and the earth” and wrote favourably about Maasai cattle skills, but he did not take local advice on how to farm land or livestock.

Some traditions have weathered the test of time. Beekeeping with split log hives was active at Simba in the 1940s and is still practiced today. Maasai herding practices on neighbouring ground survive despite difficult relations with the farm.

Research into Higgs’ colonial interests emerged from the donation of his photo albums, and exploration of Simba Farm today would not have been possible without the kind participation from the family who run Simba Farm Lodge.

This initial investigation has inspired ongoing research. Future work will interrogate legacies of land appropriation and rights, linking heritage to present-day challenges.

This work was funded by University of Reading AHRC Impact Accelerator Funding.