Answer to Question #172075 in Psychology for Faith

Question

Explain why,within roughly one hundred years,the VOC's initial objective of a small refreshment station based on intensive agriculture had to make way for a vast colony based on extensive pastoralism.

Answer 1

The first free burghers were inexperienced on the local climate of that particular area and the soil conditions too at the cape. They were naïve on farming skills; this was not because of being independent but to avoid the authority of the VOC (Keikelame, 2019). The Van Riebeeck together with their successors were worried about their inefficiency that was on the majority of them. The freeburghers did not only have this as their difficulty though it was true that they were inexperienced.

They had financial constraints thus could not meet the need their need for establishing a profitable industry that was to be vast and intensive (Gwaindepi, 2020). It was beyond their reach since they had no funds or rather limited and it occurred that most of them came from poor backgrounds. This further led to them being in debts so that they can get along with their new farms.

The VOC became in control of the farming and marketing activities keeping in mind that they never offered any financial support to them (Keikelame, 2019). It laid down the kind of seeds to be sow and the type of crops they had to plant. This was somewhat irrational since they commanded them to plant some crops, which failed to yield each year with a specific amount.

References

Keikelame, M. J., & Swartz, L. (2019). Decolonizing research methodologies: lessons from a qualitative research project, Cape Town, South Africa. Global health action, 12(1), 1561175.

Gwaindepi, A., & Siebrits, K. (2020). ‘Hit your man where you can’: Taxation strategies in the face of resistance at the British Cape Colony, c. 1820 to 1910. Economic History of Developing Regions, 35(3), 171-194.

Brilli, F., Loreto, F., & Baccelli, I. (2019). Exploiting plant volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in agriculture to improve sustainable defense strategies and productivity of crops. Frontiers in plant science, 10, 264.