Peasant Response to Agricultural Innovations: Land Consolidation, Agrarian Diversification and Technical Change. The Case of Bungoma District in Western Kenya, 1954-1960 (OTHER Papers) (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Goran Hyden's analysis of Tanzanian peasant society subscribed to the view that capital and state policies exercise a very limited impact (if any) on rural agrarian economies in Africa. (1) Hyden argued that peasant societies are conditioned by a moral economy which renders them both resistant and repulsive to innovation and change. (2) This article utilizes the case study of Bungoma district (3) in Western Kenya to argue that Hyden's analysis grossly underestimated the propensity of African rural households to respond positively to economic incentives with a view to modernizing their agrarian economies. Moreover, studies treating agrarian change in Kenya's rural areas have tended to be lop-sided in favor of central Kenya. (4) Western Kenya has often attracted attention more as a reservoir of labor power than as a producer of agricultural surpluses. (5)