The Depression and the Second World War in the Transformation of Kenya

Urban Food Systems Governance and Poverty in African Cities

“…The higher prices available to producers led to retail price increases for key foodstuffs and consumables (Lonsdale 1986). In response, officials enacted maize price controls in July 1942.…”

“…To increase food production, special legislation was passed with invigorated economic incentives. These included offering farmers minimum returns (in the event of harvest failure) and guaranteed prices for their produce, as well as providing grants for extending cultivated areas (Lonsdale 1986). More over, steps were taken to decrease the rate of food consumption: workers' daily rations were reduced in quantity, and many employers retrenched parts of their labour force.…”

Pastoral Production in Colonial Kenya: Lessons from the Past?

“…Requisitioning under quota, with higher fixed prices subsidized by the war effort, brought out the animals; holding grounds and stock routes funneled them to the center, where they were distributed via the Meat Supply Board. African producers were squeezed as never before, but white producers at last got the resources, the outlets, and the voice in government that they had wanted (Lonsdale 1986). Wartime measures could not address the deeper problems-their object was to feed the war effort-but they did point the way.…”

“…Funding the state required fixed, productive, and taxable cultivators, not unruly and seemingly unproductive pastoralists. The restructuring of the colonial economy around agricultural production and labor drew old trading partners into new sets of relations in which investment in livestock drawn from the pastoral core was no longer the only path to wealth and influence (Kitching 1980;Lonsdale 1989). Racial and ethnic boundary-making had also reduced the spatial and social mobility on which pastoral exploitation depended.…”

Up in Smoke: Peasants, Capital and the Colonial State in the Tobacco Industry in Western Kenya, 1930-1939

“…""• This point was emphasized at the plant industry staff conference in January 1934, where AOs were urged to push tobacco for the production of "native cigarettes" since it was "comparatively easy to start."'" 23 It should be remembered, however, that the introduction of cash crops such as tobacco was far from being the highest priority of the agricultural officers in the field. The plants grew well at Bukura, and a substantial amount of seed was bulked for further planting.…”