(later renamed the African Tobacco Board) was created. Settler demands for the regulation of the peasant tobacco and cotton sectors were partly motivated by fears that profitable smallholder farming could reduce the availability of cheap African labour for their estates. The formation of the Native Tobacco Board stimulated African production in the Central Region, but registered growers paid heavily for it. At first, the Board charged a levy of thirty pence a hundred pounds of tobacco, 10% of the price it paid growers. In 1930, this was raised to one third of the price paid to meet increased costs. In the Second World War and after the Board recovered its costs and underpaid growers, retaining between 25% and 35% of the auction prices obtained to meet costs equal to only 15% to 20% of those prices. A Maize Control Board was formed in 1947. It was supposed to ensure that Malawi's maize supplies were maintained and to guarantee minimum prices to farmers, but it was hampered by lack of funds and its objectives were unattainable with the organisation it had. To cover the cost of a country-wide network, the Board fixed a very low buying price and sold maize at double this price. These low prices discouraged farmers from growing maize commercially, and inhibited the development of grain markets. The quantities of maize available for the home market dropped significantly at a time of growing demand caused by poor harvests in the run up to the major famine in 1949. After the 1949 famine, the MCB promoted maize production, but when world prices fell in the 1950s, it abandoned the import and export trade, and the Nyasaland administration discouraged maize production in agriculturally unsuitable areas. In 1952, an African Produce and Marketing Board (later renamed the Agricultural Production and Marketing Board) was created with control over the marketing of African produce including maize, beans, peas, wheat, groundnuts, rice, sorghum millet, cassava and cotton seed. In 1956, the activities, powers and duties of the Maize Control, African Tobacco and Cotton Control boards were transferred to the Agricultural Production and Marketing Board. It had powers to buy smallholder surpluses, but its producer prices were biased against peasant producers and did not reflect the rise in living costs: they were so unsatisfactory that even settlers on the Legislative Council called for the revision of the Board's pricing policy. When Dr Hastings Banda became