ABSTRACT
The European colonisation of the Kenya Highlands spanned the first sixty years of the century, during which the enclave group received much governmental assistance. The White Highlands thus initiated Kenya's agricultural export economy, but land alienation and settlement also created the current land problem. Kenya's pioneering experience in land reform and land settlement is of undoubted interest to other African nations. Africans were assisted to buy land from European farmers, many of whom wished to liquidate their farming assets before independence occurred in December, 1963. High-density schemes were for Africans with limited capital and agricultural knowledge; settlers were mostly selected on criteria of poverty and unemployment. Loan cooperatives also enabled groups of African farmers to buy European farms with help from the Kenya Agricultural Bank. A government policy statement in April 1965 indicated a radical shift from European to African areas and from settlement to consolidation.
