Agricultural Development Policy in Kenya from the Colonial Period to 1975

Abstract

In Kenya, at least in the period from 1955 to 1975, external intervention in agricultural production has been pervasive and influential. The result has been that the incomes of very large sections of the population have increased substantially. Some have been left out, and some have been impoverished, but the overall effect has been to improve the conditions of most of the population. This was achieved not so much because external intervention was better designed or differently motivated than elsewhere, but because it took place under favourable conditions, in which the coincidence of the interests of external and national government agencies with politicians and smallholders made possible a significant expansion of agricultural produce, most particularly by smallholders, for both the local and export markets.