ABSTRACT
A major analytic theme of this study is that colonial regimes articulated political strategies in order to successfully incorporate key collaborating groups. Policy was as much a response to problems and crises arising in the economy and society. It’s roots lie in the political economy and in the minds of policy-makers. The strategic goal was the incorporation of key collaborating groups in order to ensure the reproduction of accumulation and control necessary to the continued viability of the state. Agricultural policy vis-a-vis the African lands, some 80% of the potentially fertile land in Kenya, was posed in terms of saving the soil from destruction in order to re-create stable reserves. Agriculture Department officers were inclined to work with commercially-oriented “progressive farmers” who were very much opposed to resurrecting ‘traditional’ control over the land. The chapter examines the impact of the policy in terms of its own specific goals and in terms of its relation to the broader political strategies.
