ABSTRACT
The period from the beginning of the settlement of tenants on land in 1957 to the completion of physical development and also of settlement in 1960 is the most complex in the history of the Mwea Scheme. The extent of the changes which took place is suggested by the fact that at the end of 1956 no tenants had been settled and only 589 acres had been prepared for irrigation, whereas at the end of 1960 there were 1,244 tenants on holdings and 5,226 acres of irrigable land had been developed. The period includes the complete range of activities—policy formulation, survey, local negotiation, planning, construction, settlement, production, and organization—which were carried out in creating the Scheme as a largely independent entity. The mesh of activities and events is so interwoven that any separation of strands for the purposes of analysis risks distortion. Nevertheless the arrival of potential settlers in November 1955, and the start of their settlement as tenants in 1957, introduced a new thread into the Scheme around which, as it were, other threads clustered and arranged themselves. These settlers, representing yet another invasion of the Mwea, yet another layer of colonization, altered the attitudes and relationships of the government departments which had preceded them. They stimulated the Administration and the Management into expressing different views of the purposes of the Scheme. They raised the questions of which department could claim to administer them, and of which department should ‘own’ the Scheme. They provoked the local people into new forms of behaviour towards the Scheme. They also changed the nature of the Scheme by adding a new human and social dimension. It is these processes that are described and discussed in this chapter.
