Debate from ROAPE Volume 12 Number 34
Problems of Theory/Research: Comments on Buch-Hansen...

Of the many contributions to the debate on Kenyan dependency in ROAPE only Mogens Buch-Hansen and Henrik Marcussen in their paper on contract farming and the peasantry (ROAPE 23, 1982 - see link below) attempt to assess the effects of capital investment in agriculture at the local level. Contract farming is of both major and increasing importance to the economy of Kenya with estimates of about 12 per cent of smallholders producing cash crops of contract and accounting for some 15 per cent of the total marketed output (Buch-Hansen 1980: 11). Hensen and Marcussen's particular interest is in those agro-industrial complexes which have been established by collaboration between multinational firms and international capital, on the one side, and the Kenyan Government, on the other. Their test cases are tea, sponsored by the Kenya Tea Development Authority (KTDA) and studied at Buret, and sugar, sponsored by the Mumias Sugar Company and studied in Muhoroni and Mumias. Their data from these studies, it is claimed, fails to support the dependency position. We find the analysis unconvincing, however, and here address its main arguments and their implications.