Colonial Agricultural Development

Abstract

Leading up to the inauguration of colonialism in the early 1890s, communities in what became Kenya were industrious at cultivating the land to meet their needs. Bantu communities spread across the productive highlands in the precincts of the Victoria Basin, the highlands of central Kenya, and coastal plains and hills were ardent farmers cultivating varieties of grains and vegetables. Some Nilotic communities such as the Luo and Kalenjin produced millets and other food crops to supplement fishing and livestock keeping. However, livestock raising as a major land-use economic activity was restricted to communities such as Somali, Samburu, Borana, and Turkana inhabiting the drier rangelands of northern and northeastern Kenya. Among major livestock keepers, only the Maasai inhabited the luxurious pasturelands of central-southern Kenya. Other communities, notably the Pokot, Nandi, Tugen, and Kipsigis were ardent mixed farmers who kept large herds and also made a living from limited forms of land cultivation (Elliot, 1966). Thus, these precolonial modes of production provided an ideal setup upon which agricultural transformation propelled by colonial forces was established.