In the first years of the protectorate, very little of the alienated land was planted. Settlers wanted labour and encouraged existing Africans to stay on the undeveloped land, and new workers (often migrants from Mozambique) to move onto it, and grow their own crops. From the late 1890s, when the estates started to produce coffee, the owners began to charge these tenants a rent, usually satisfied by two months’ labour a year, of which one month was to meet the worker's tax obligation; however, some owners demanded longer periods of labour.