Fromings Collection: Production of Malawi Darkfired Tobacco Part 1 1956

Filmmaker: Douglas Fromings Film showing every stage of the production of dark fired tobacco at Kasiya (40 miles from Lilongwe) in Nyasaland (Malawi), from the issue of seed to the despatch of baled leaf to the Limbe Auction floors. Fromings supplied five typed pages of notes to accompany the film. He provided some commentary on the footage, and also covered the general background of the dark fired tobacco cultivation project. Detailed description The film begins in bright sunlight in a clearing, where a large group of African males are sitting on the ground. Douglas Fromings (DF) is seated at a table. In his notes he identifies this as a meeting of tobacco growers in 1956, outside a village in Malawi. An African male is seated next to DF, addressing the group. DF identifies him as Simeon, the Head Instructor. The growers are seen queuing to register and for seed issue before the film pans across seed beds being prepared for planting. Dry grass is laid on tilled and ridged beds to burn off weeds, and seed is mixed in a watering can. Young plants are being heeled in by hand, and there is a long shot of several workers attending to the ridges, with small white houses at the edge of field, where young children walk. DF is filmed in the field as plants flourish, before one plant is carefully lifted away; DF's notes explain that this is a diseased plant 'being carefully lifted to avoid contact with other plants or himself and then solemnly burnt'. Ox carts are led by workers along tracks at the edge of the field, where crop rotation is being practiced.