ABSTRACT
The chapter provides a historical overview of how the colonial Kenyan state engaged with urban food problems. The objective is to give historical context to the notion that little attention has been paid to the local governance and planning of urban food systems in Africa, by examining the specific case of Kenya. It is argued that the colonial Kenyan state was interested in urban food problems, in various ways. In the early twentieth century, officials sought control over the production of the built environment to prevent food contamination and the spread of disease. From the late 1920s, urban food problems were increasingly seen as matters of economic access and malnutrition. Food crises during the Second World War helped to consolidate a view of urban food security as a specific kind of economic problem imbricated with wider questions of production, marketing, distribution, and income. These issues, extending well beyond areas of municipal competence, were governed at the level of the central state. Consequently, urban local governments in contexts like Kenya historically have enjoyed few powers and responsibilities over the food system.
