| dc.description.abstract | The increasing interest in and incidence of contract farming, organised
by the peripheral state and international agribusiness and financed by the
international lending and aid agencies, has created a debate as to it's
usefulness and suitability as a vehicle for accelerating rural development.
By means of a comparative study of contracted and non-contracted
smallholders in the Mumias area of Western Kenya, where a sugarcane contract
farming scheme has been in operation since 1973, this study attempts to
address some of the questions arising from that debate. In particular
the study sets out to discover the effects of the contract scheme on
subsistence production, differentiation processes and centralisation of
land ownership in the area. It was also hoped to discover whether the
introduction of the contract sugar scheme has stimulated overall development
in the area, as was assumed by the Kenyan government when it commissioned
the scheme.
It was demonstrated that as regards subsistence production in the
area, although difficult to prove statistically, it appears that contracted
smallholders have lower food crop self-sufficiency and thus have a larger
reliance on the market for food purchases than is the case with non-contracted
smallholders. It was also shown that although there were no
significant differences between the two groups of smallholders in terms
of area of food crops, there were statistically significant differences
between the two groups as regards food crop production. The contract
smallholders have slightly higher maize yields, while the non-contract
smallholders' higher cassava yields could indicate a lowering of famine
insurance by the contracted smallholders.
There is a little direct evidence of declining smallholder living
standards predicted by critics of contract farming, although there are
indications that the terms of trade between food and sugarcane prices are
worsening, thus eroding contract smallholder living standards. Furthermore
it was shown that the Mumias area as a whole could have an annual
food deficit equivalent to 10,000 tonnes of maize, thus creating a
dependence on food sources outside the area which could prove disastrous
in times of drought or famine.
As regards differentiation, the extra income from sugarcane cultivation
has led to large and statistically significant differences between the
two groups of smallholders in terms of both gross agricultural product
and net agricultural surplus. However, it was shown that the present day
distribution of agricultural surplus among all smallholders is probably
more equitable than was the case before the introduction of contract
farming, due to the relatively equal distribution of cane incomes within
the contracted smallholders. The contracted smallholders hiring of
unnecessary labour, the amount of seasonal work available directly from
M.S.C. and the necessity for non-contract smallholders to earn some form
of supplementary non-farm income, have probably all contributed to reducing
the impact of the contract scheme on differentiation processes in the area.
It was demonstrated that some centralisation of land ownership is
taking place within the Mumias area, with contracted smallholders acquiring
land at the expense of non-contracted smallholders. However, as poorer
contracted smallholders are also purchasing land, it is unlikely that land
ownership will become concentrated in the hands of the larger, more prospero
contracted smallholders in the foreseeable future. Neither is it likely
that 'true' proletarianisation of non-contracted smallholders will take
place in the Mumias area, although it is possible that a financial crisis
could give this result.
It appears that during the planning stages of the project, the
Kenyan government concentrated on the commercial considerations to the
detriment of the scheme's development objectives. It would seem that
overall development of the area was viewed as an automatic, self-regulating
process, thus no problem and conflict identification or planning framework
was devised to control or guide the assumed development.
The creation of the sugar factory and contracted outgrower scheme at
Mumias has released a powerful force for diversified economic and social
development in the area. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that the
opportunities have been grasped. Development in the area remains monotypic
and consequently socially and economically disruptive. | en |
