How Colonial Policies Stalled the Agrarian Revolution in Independent Kenya: 1954 To 1992

Considering that the Swynnerton plan of 1954 arose because of land crises and widespread impoverishment in African areas, this primal colonial agricultural policy was experimental in design and execution. Other significant experiments on African agriculture in pre-independent Kenya include the ‘communalism’ agricultural approach by Governor Sir Philip Mitchell in 1947 through the African Land Development Board (ALDEV) and the Land Development and Settlement Board (LDSB) schemes of 1961 – 62, which sought to integrate Africans into the capitalist economy. Empirical evidence shows that the colonial agricultural policy for improving African agriculture in pre-independent Kenya largely failed and directly compromised the realisation of the agrarian revolution's political, economic, and social benefits in independent Kenya, from 1954 to 1992. Farmers have regressed to subsistence food production as the smallholding mixed-farming units have failed, and so are monopsonic market structures. Based on the foregoing view, the study evaluated how the colonial agricultural policy in pre-independent Kenya largely stalled the agrarian revolution in independent Kenya by examining the historical development of the Ndalat Settlement Scheme, Nandi County, Kenya, as one of the LDSB schemes. The study adopted a historical descriptive design with a sample size of 48 key informants who were conveniently sampled from 32 farmers, four cooperative officials, five pioneering settlement officials, two Ministry of Agriculture officials, and three retired agricultural officers. Interviews were the main research instrument, complemented by archival and government policy documents. The findings indicated that the Ndalat settlement scheme was part of the colonial LDSB initiatives to resettle the landless Nandi people based on a loan facility under Her Majesty's Government (assisted–owner) schemes. In reflection, the colonial policy stalled the agrarian revolution through the experimental LDSB settlement schemes, which formed the basis for land redistribution in independent Kenya, institutionalised smallholding mixed-farming systems, commercialised food production systems supported monopsonic market structures that were linked to value addition in metropolitan capital London. In conclusion, the study idealized the alternate idyllic activities that would have supported agricultural development in independent Kenya such as the introduction of medium to large-scale specialized farms, commercialization of high-value crops such as coffee, tea, macadamia, avocado production, competitive marketing structures based on the producer cooperative structures, and local value addition processing. Based on the findings, there is a need to review the current agricultural policy and align it with the development needs of the independent Kenya.