ENTER THE ENTOMOLOGISTS

In order to understand the next phase of the history of prickly pear, we should turn to the state and entomologists. In the 1930s, the white-controlled South African state found new confidence and new money. The depression years (1929 to 1933) hit the country hard. Yet recovery was relatively rapid as the gold price soared in the 1930s. State revenues and employment expanded quickly. Hertzog's electoral victories in 1924 and 1929 enabled Afrikaners to flex their nationalist political muscle. Although bruised by the depression, Hertzog hung on to some power in a new fusion government with Smuts (1934). They launched ambitious projects in a number of spheres – not least intensifying racial segregation. They shared in a widespread, global, post-depression conviction that the state should and could take a greater part in shaping and improving society. They resolved to address the poor white problem and they funnelled finance into agriculture.

The Department of Agriculture was built around scientific expertise. During this period it had one of the largest concentrations of applied scientists in the country. Embedded directly in the bureaucracy, they turned their skills to pressing national problems. While South Africa's fractious and divided white society was not a global leader in many spheres, the natural sciences were becoming comparatively strong. Scientists in many spheres – from engineers to parasitologists – had long believed that they could contribute to resolve social problems. South Africa had, for example, embarked on major government dam-building projects for irrigation and had instituted a massive, national, livestock dipping programme. The expansion of the state gave scientists greater scope.

At the very moment that cactus seemed to offer a panacea for droughts, so too was a new urgency articulated about the need to control spiny, wild prickly pear. The tilting of the balance in favour of attempted eradication is a complex story. It was not simply a victory for wealthy, white landowners. As we will see, they remained split on the issue because the new techniques of eradication threatened their plantations of spineless cactus. But it was, overall, a policy that reflected and encouraged a scientific approach to agriculture and natural resources. In the minds of officials, they were promoting both the improvement of farming and conservation of natural resources.