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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Development of Capitalism and the Transformation of the Peasantry in Kenya |
Authors: | Buch-Hansen, Mogens Kieler, Jan |
Year: | 1983 |
Periodical: | Rural Africana |
Issue: | 15-16 |
Period: | Winter-Spring |
Pages: | 13-40 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Kenya |
Subjects: | agricultural development agroindustry small farms Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Labor and Employment Economics and Trade |
Abstract: | Change in African agriculture is normally considered to take place at a very slow pace. The transformation of Kenyan agriculture in the last eighty years, however, contradicts this viewpoint. The authors describe three stages in the development of Kenyan agriculture: 1) stage of the disruption of traditional systems by the establishment and advancement of European agriculture; 2) stage of the elaboration of the Swynnerton Plan in the 1950s with expanding African cash crop production and change of land tenure system to one of individual ownership; 3) stage beginning in the late 1960s with the establishment of agribusiness and agroindustrial production based on contracts with small-scale farmers. The introduction of agribusiness (tea, sugar, tobacco and horticulture) was the third change in Kenyan agriculture. The creation of the reserves made a serious break in the traditional trend of development; the market integration of the smallholders laid the foundation for capitalist development; agribusiness strengthened the capitalist development. This article describes some of the features of Kenyan agribusiness and its consequences for the small-scale farmers with regard to production, land use patterns and development infrastructure. Fig., notes. |