Black, white, and red all over: Beans, women, and agricultural imperialism in twentieth-century Kenya

Agricultural History

Volumn 71, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 259-299

  Robertson, Claire C ^a  

^a OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

PHASEOLUS (ANGIOSPERM);

AGRICULTURAL HISTORY; BEAN PRODUCTION; BRITISH COLONY; COLONIAL SOCIETY; HISTORICAL STUDY; TWENTIETH CENTURY; WOMEN'S STATUS;

KENYA;

EID: 0031420523     PISSN: 00021482     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (185)

1. Barbara D. Webster and J. Giles Waines, "Tepary Beans: A Resource for Improvement of Common Beans," Research Highlights, Michigan State University, Bean/Cowpea CRSP (1985), 1; William Grisley, "Observations on the Economics of Bean Seed Issues in Africa," unpub. paper (November 1989).
2. Barbara D. Webster and J. Giles Waines, "Tepary Beans: A Resource for Improvement of Common Beans," Research Highlights, Michigan State University, Bean/Cowpea CRSP (1985), 1; William Grisley, "Observations on the Economics of Bean Seed Issues in Africa," unpub. paper (November 1989).
3. While Alfred Crosby would call the Kikuyu the first human "shock troops" of "ecological imperialism," he underrated the impact of what he saw as an unthinking opportunism rooting Europeans and their plants in new temperate areas. Crosby praised the success of what he called neo-European agriculture. I chronicle here, however, an intentional subordination of local crops and peoples to European interests, which created the conditions for food dependency, or insecurity. The central Kenyan case is atypical in that white settlers ultimately did not succeed in imposing capital-intensive pesticide-dependent farming on their own behalf, but rather bequeathed it to the area, which now has wealthy Kenyans with large farms who occasionally employ the increasingly desperate small farmers, most of whom are women. Thus, this essay details the implementation and consequences of Crosby's eloquently described scenario "wherever colonial environments have been Europeanized . . . a condition of continual disruption [can be found]. . . plowed fields, razed forests, overgrazed pastures, and burned prairies, of deserted villages and expanding cities, of humans, animals, plants and microlife that have evolved separately suddenly coming into intimate contact." Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 280, 291-92, 307-8.
4. The fieldwork on which this essay is based was done in 1987-88 with beansellers in the Nairobi area including adjacent Kiambu, supplemented by extensive archival research including Kenya Ministry of Agriculture files, as well as older Kenya National Archive (KNA) materials. Unless otherwise specified all call numbers in these notes refer to material in KNA. The primary aim of the research was to construct a history of the women's dried staples trade, which is fully documented in Claire Robertson, Trouble Showed the Way: Women, Men and Trade in the Nairobi Area, 1890-1990 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, in press). Beansellers, who often also sold dried maize, formed a significant proportion (25 percent) of a sample of 1,018 traders interviewed in seventeen markets in the Nairobi area ranging from downtown Nairobi to Limuru some twenty kilometers away. L D. Smith, "An Overview of Agricultural Development Policy," in Agricultural Development in Kenya, ed. J. Heyer, J. K. Maitha, and W. M. Senga (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1981), 111.
5. The fieldwork on which this essay is based was done in 1987-88 with beansellers in the Nairobi area including adjacent Kiambu, supplemented by extensive archival research including Kenya Ministry of Agriculture files, as well as older Kenya National Archive (KNA) materials. Unless otherwise specified all call numbers in these notes refer to material in KNA. The primary aim of the research was to construct a history of the women's dried staples trade, which is fully documented in Claire Robertson, Trouble Showed the Way: Women, Men and Trade in the Nairobi Area, 1890-1990 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, in press). Beansellers, who often also sold dried maize, formed a significant proportion (25 percent) of a sample of 1,018 traders interviewed in seventeen markets in the Nairobi area ranging from downtown Nairobi to Limuru some twenty kilometers away. L D. Smith, "An Overview of Agricultural Development Policy," in Agricultural Development in Kenya, ed. J. Heyer, J. K. Maitha, and W. M. Senga (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1981), 111.
6. The pigeon pea is usually given an African origin, while lablab beans are sometimes given an Asian origin. P. J. Greenway, "Origins of Some East African Food Plants," East African Agricultural Journal 3 (January 1945): 179; Celestous Juma, The Gene Hunters: Biotechnology and the Scramble for Seeds (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 17.
7. The pigeon pea is usually given an African origin, while lablab beans are sometimes given an Asian origin. P. J. Greenway, "Origins of Some East African Food Plants," East African Agricultural Journal 3 (January 1945): 179; Celestous Juma, The Gene Hunters: Biotechnology and the Scramble for Seeds (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 17.
8. L. S. B. Leakey, The Southern Kikuyu Before 1903 (New York; Academic Press, 1977), III: 1077-78; Wanjiku Mukabi Kabira and Karega wa Mutahi, Gikuyu Oral Literature (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1988), 97.
9. L. S. B. Leakey, The Southern Kikuyu Before 1903 (New York; Academic Press, 1977), III: 1077-78; Wanjiku Mukabi Kabira and Karega wa Mutahi, Gikuyu Oral Literature (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1988), 97.
10. Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu (1938; reprint, New York Vintage, 1965), 57, 130-31; Leakey, Southern Kikuyu, I: 265; Sir Michael Blundell, interview by author, Nairobi, 10 September 1988; Kenya Native Affairs Department, Annual Report (1946): 64 (hereafter AR); interview by author #803, Kiambu, Kenya, 11 October 1988. To preserve anonymity survey informants are cited by numbers or letters along with the location of the inteview in the Nairobi area.
11. Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu (1938; reprint, New York Vintage, 1965), 57, 130-31; Leakey, Southern Kikuyu, I: 265; Sir Michael Blundell, interview by author, Nairobi, 10 September 1988; Kenya Native Affairs Department, Annual Report (1946): 64 (hereafter AR); interview by author #803, Kiambu, Kenya, 11 October 1988. To preserve anonymity survey informants are cited by numbers or letters along with the location of the inteview in the Nairobi area.
12. Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu (1938; reprint, New York Vintage, 1965), 57, 130-31; Leakey, Southern Kikuyu, I: 265; Sir Michael Blundell, interview by author, Nairobi, 10 September 1988; Kenya Native Affairs Department, Annual Report (1946): 64 (hereafter AR); interview by author #803, Kiambu, Kenya, 11 October 1988. To preserve anonymity survey informants are cited by numbers or letters along with the location of the inteview in the Nairobi area.
13. Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu (1938; reprint, New York Vintage, 1965), 57, 130-31; Leakey, Southern Kikuyu, I: 265; Sir Michael Blundell, interview by author, Nairobi, 10 September 1988; Kenya Native Affairs Department, Annual Report (1946): 64 (hereafter AR); interview by author #803, Kiambu, Kenya, 11 October 1988. To preserve anonymity survey informants are cited by numbers or letters along with the location of the inteview in the Nairobi area.
14. Leakey, Southern Kikuyu, III: 1172-74. Elspeth Huxley, Red Strangers (London: Chatto and Windus, 1955), 10, said they came from the mubage bush and were shiny. She also described (117) a game called giuthi, a form of wari, played with beans. For the Kamba also beans may have had special significance, as they were used as part of the contents of certain powerful medicines for which they were famous. K. Ndeti, Elements of Akamba Life (Nairobi: East African, 1972), 125.
15. Leakey, Southern Kikuyu, III: 1172-74. Elspeth Huxley, Red Strangers (London: Chatto and Windus, 1955), 10, said they came from the mubage bush and were shiny. She also described (117) a game called giuthi, a form of wari, played with beans. For the Kamba also beans may have had special significance, as they were used as part of the contents of certain powerful medicines for which they were famous. K. Ndeti, Elements of Akamba Life (Nairobi: East African, 1972), 125.
16. Leakey, Southern Kikuyu, III: 1172-74. Elspeth Huxley, Red Strangers (London: Chatto and Windus, 1955), 10, said they came from the mubage bush and were shiny. She also described (117) a game called giuthi, a form of wari, played with beans. For the Kamba also beans may have had special significance, as they were used as part of the contents of certain powerful medicines for which they were famous. K. Ndeti, Elements of Akamba Life (Nairobi: East African, 1972), 125.
17. Jeanne Fisher, The Anatomy of Kikuyu Domesticity and Husbandry (London: Department of Technical Cooperation, c. 1951), 80, 99; Fisher, interview by author, Cambridge, England, 14 October 1992.
18. Jeanne Fisher, The Anatomy of Kikuyu Domesticity and Husbandry (London: Department of Technical Cooperation, c. 1951), 80, 99; Fisher, interview by author, Cambridge, England, 14 October 1992.
19. DC/MKS/IOB 13/1: Muigwithania I, 9 (February 1929): 3-4; PC/CENT 2/1/13, Minutes, 22-25 October 1946;
20. Tabitha Kanogo, Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1988, 23-24.
21. Cora Ann Presley, Kikuyu Women, the Mau Mau Rebellion, and Social Change in Kenya (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 118;
22. Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Devil on the Cross (London: Heinemann, 1982), 39;
23. Daily Nation (Nairobi), 10 June 1988, 7.
24. The symbolic significance of women's cooking is a growing source of interest among feminist anthropologists. For a critique of Levi-Strauss's incomplete analysis, see Gracia Clark, "Money, Sex and Cooking: Manipulation of the Paid/Unpaid Boundary by Asante Market Women," in The Social Economy of Consumption, ed. H. J. Rutz and B. S. Orlove (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989); and Jane I. Guyer, "The Raw, the Cooked and the Half-Baked: A Note on the Division of Labor by Sex," Working Paper No. 48, Boston University African Studies Center, 1981. In Tanganyika during World War II conscripted male laborers threw away beans rather than cook them. This may not have been solely due to the length of time involved but also to the symbolism. J. K. Matheson and E. W. Bovill, eds., East African Agriculture (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), 168.
25. The symbolic significance of women's cooking is a growing source of interest among feminist anthropologists. For a critique of Levi-Strauss's incomplete analysis, see Gracia Clark, "Money, Sex and Cooking: Manipulation of the Paid/Unpaid Boundary by Asante Market Women," in The Social Economy of Consumption, ed. H. J. Rutz and B. S. Orlove (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989); and Jane I. Guyer, "The Raw, the Cooked and the Half-Baked: A Note on the Division of Labor by Sex," Working Paper No. 48, Boston University African Studies Center, 1981. In Tanganyika during World War II conscripted male laborers threw away beans rather than cook them. This may not have been solely due to the length of time involved but also to the symbolism. J. K. Matheson and E. W. Bovill, eds., East African Agriculture (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), 168.
26. The symbolic significance of women's cooking is a growing source of interest among feminist anthropologists. For a critique of Levi-Strauss's incomplete analysis, see Gracia Clark, "Money, Sex and Cooking: Manipulation of the Paid/Unpaid Boundary by Asante Market Women," in The Social Economy of Consumption, ed. H. J. Rutz and B. S. Orlove (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989); and Jane I. Guyer, "The Raw, the Cooked and the Half-Baked: A Note on the Division of Labor by Sex," Working Paper No. 48, Boston University African Studies Center, 1981. In Tanganyika during World War II conscripted male laborers threw away beans rather than cook them. This may not have been solely due to the length of time involved but also to the symbolism. J. K. Matheson and E. W. Bovill, eds., East African Agriculture (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), 168.
27. Fisher, Anatomy, 80. Similarly, maize among Andean and Aztec peoples is used as a metaphor for food. Without it there is hunger. Alan R. Sandstrom, Corn Is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnic Identity in a Contemporary Aztec Indian Village (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 132, 194;
28. Fisher, Anatomy, 80. Similarly, maize among Andean and Aztec peoples is used as a metaphor for food. Without it there is hunger. Alan R. Sandstrom, Corn Is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnic Identity in a Contemporary Aztec Indian Village (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 132, 194;
29. Regina Harrison, Signs, Songs, and Memory in the Andes (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989), 172.
30. Lawrence and Lucille N. Kaplan, "Phaseolus in Archeology," in Genetic Resources of Phaseolus Beans, ed. Paul Gepts (Dordrecht: Klusser Academic, 1988), 129. Columbus on his second return voyage to Spain in 1494 took maize and other seeds along, and Jacques Cartier took Phaseolus seeds to France from Canada in 1535. Lucile H. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Rale of the British Royal Botanic Gardens (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 38, 43. In return, Africans took cowpeas to New England by the 1660s and millet by the 1730s; Juma, Hunters, 53, 182, 190 ; S. K. Njugunah, A. M. M. Ndegwa, H. A. van Rheenen, and D. M. Mukunya, Bean Production in Kenya, Ottawa: International Development Research Center Publication, c. 1976, 35; M. W. Adams and G. B. Martin, "Genetic Structure of Bean Landraces in Malawi," in Genetic Resources of Phaseolus Beans, ed. Paul Gepts (Dordrecht: Klusser Academic, 1988), 357.
31. Lawrence and Lucille N. Kaplan, "Phaseolus in Archeology," in Genetic Resources of Phaseolus Beans, ed. Paul Gepts (Dordrecht: Klusser Academic, 1988), 129. Columbus on his second return voyage to Spain in 1494 took maize and other seeds along, and Jacques Cartier took Phaseolus seeds to France from Canada in 1535. Lucile H. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Rale of the British Royal Botanic Gardens (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 38, 43. In return, Africans took cowpeas to New England by the 1660s and millet by the 1730s; Juma, Hunters, 53, 182, 190 ; S. K. Njugunah, A. M. M. Ndegwa, H. A. van Rheenen, and D. M. Mukunya, Bean Production in Kenya, Ottawa: International Development Research Center Publication, c. 1976, 35; M. W. Adams and G. B. Martin, "Genetic Structure of Bean Landraces in Malawi," in Genetic Resources of Phaseolus Beans, ed. Paul Gepts (Dordrecht: Klusser Academic, 1988), 357.
32. Lawrence and Lucille N. Kaplan, "Phaseolus in Archeology," in Genetic Resources of Phaseolus Beans, ed. Paul Gepts (Dordrecht: Klusser Academic, 1988), 129. Columbus on his second return voyage to Spain in 1494 took maize and other seeds along, and Jacques Cartier took Phaseolus seeds to France from Canada in 1535. Lucile H. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Rale of the British Royal Botanic Gardens (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 38, 43. In return, Africans took cowpeas to New England by the 1660s and millet by the 1730s; Juma, Hunters, 53, 182, 190 ; S. K. Njugunah, A. M. M. Ndegwa, H. A. van Rheenen, and D. M. Mukunya, Bean Production in Kenya, Ottawa: International Development Research Center Publication, c. 1976, 35; M. W. Adams and G. B. Martin, "Genetic Structure of Bean Landraces in Malawi," in Genetic Resources of Phaseolus Beans, ed. Paul Gepts (Dordrecht: Klusser Academic, 1988), 357.
33. Lawrence and Lucille N. Kaplan, "Phaseolus in Archeology," in Genetic Resources of Phaseolus Beans, ed. Paul Gepts (Dordrecht: Klusser Academic, 1988), 129. Columbus on his second return voyage to Spain in 1494 took maize and other seeds along, and Jacques Cartier took Phaseolus seeds to France from Canada in 1535. Lucile H. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Rale of the British Royal Botanic Gardens (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 38, 43. In return, Africans took cowpeas to New England by the 1660s and millet by the 1730s; Juma, Hunters, 53, 182, 190 ; S. K. Njugunah, A. M. M. Ndegwa, H. A. van Rheenen, and D. M. Mukunya, Bean Production in Kenya, Ottawa: International Development Research Center Publication, c. 1976, 35; M. W. Adams and G. B. Martin, "Genetic Structure of Bean Landraces in Malawi," in Genetic Resources of Phaseolus Beans, ed. Paul Gepts (Dordrecht: Klusser Academic, 1988), 357.
34. Lawrence and Lucille N. Kaplan, "Phaseolus in Archeology," in Genetic Resources of Phaseolus Beans, ed. Paul Gepts (Dordrecht: Klusser Academic, 1988), 129. Columbus on his second return voyage to Spain in 1494 took maize and other seeds along, and Jacques Cartier took Phaseolus seeds to France from Canada in 1535. Lucile H. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Rale of the British Royal Botanic Gardens (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 38, 43. In return, Africans took cowpeas to New England by the 1660s and millet by the 1730s; Juma, Hunters, 53, 182, 190 ; S. K. Njugunah, A. M. M. Ndegwa, H. A. van Rheenen, and D. M. Mukunya, Bean Production in Kenya, Ottawa: International Development Research Center Publication, c. 1976, 35; M. W. Adams and G. B. Martin, "Genetic Structure of Bean Landraces in Malawi," in Genetic Resources of Phaseolus Beans, ed. Paul Gepts (Dordrecht: Klusser Academic, 1988), 357.
35. F. D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire, excerpted in East African Explorers, ed. C. Richards and J. Place (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1967), 305; Peter Rogers, "The British and the Kikuyu, 1890-1905: A Reassessment," Journal of African History 20, no. 2 (1979): 262. H. J. Mackinder, The First Ascent of Mount Kenya, ed. K. M. Barbour (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1991), 95, was chiefly supplied with the indigenized variety of maize and fed his porters posho. It is not clear from his account if his Swahili caravan masters demanded maize in their forcible extractions of food from a famine-stricken population in 1899.
36. F. D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire, excerpted in East African Explorers, ed. C. Richards and J. Place (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1967), 305; Peter Rogers, "The British and the Kikuyu, 1890-1905: A Reassessment," Journal of African History 20, no. 2 (1979): 262. H. J. Mackinder, The First Ascent of Mount Kenya, ed. K. M. Barbour (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1991), 95, was chiefly supplied with the indigenized variety of maize and fed his porters posho. It is not clear from his account if his Swahili caravan masters demanded maize in their forcible extractions of food from a famine-stricken population in 1899.
37. F. D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire, excerpted in East African Explorers, ed. C. Richards and J. Place (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1967), 305; Peter Rogers, "The British and the Kikuyu, 1890-1905: A Reassessment," Journal of African History 20, no. 2 (1979): 262. H. J. Mackinder, The First Ascent of Mount Kenya, ed. K. M. Barbour (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1991), 95, was chiefly supplied with the indigenized variety of maize and fed his porters posho. It is not clear from his account if his Swahili caravan masters demanded maize in their forcible extractions of food from a famine-stricken population in 1899.
38. Personal communication with Paul Gepts, 25 June 1992; Paul Gepts and F. A. Bliss, "Dissemination Pathways of Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris, Fabaceae) Deduced from Phaseolin Electrophoretic Variability II: Europe and Africa," Economic Botany 42, no. 1 (1988): 102;
39. Colin L. A. Leakey, interview by author, Cambridge, 15 October 1992. All interviews with Colin Leakey and Jeanne Fisher were conducted at their homes in or near Cambridge, England.
40. Anne E. Ferguson and Susan L. Sprecher, "Women and Plant Genetic Diversity: The Case of Beans in the Central Region of Malawi," paper presented for Bean/Cowpea CRSP, American Anthropological Association Conference, Chicago, November 1987, 2; Jack Ralph Kloppenburg Jr., First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology, 1492-2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 48, 182.
41. Anne E. Ferguson and Susan L. Sprecher, "Women and Plant Genetic Diversity: The Case of Beans in the Central Region of Malawi," paper presented for Bean/Cowpea CRSP, American Anthropological Association Conference, Chicago, November 1987, 2; Jack Ralph Kloppenburg Jr., First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology, 1492-2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 48, 182.
42. Marvin P. Miracle, Maize in Tropical Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), 99; Lugard, Rise, 305; William Astor Chanler, Through Jungle and Desert: Travels in Eastern Africa (London: Macmillan, 1896), 105; W. T. W. Morgan, "Kikuyu and Kamba: The Tribal Background," in Nairobi: City and Region, ed. W. T. W. Morgan (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1967), 61.
43. Marvin P. Miracle, Maize in Tropical Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), 99; Lugard, Rise, 305; William Astor Chanler, Through Jungle and Desert: Travels in Eastern Africa (London: Macmillan, 1896), 105; W. T. W. Morgan, "Kikuyu and Kamba: The Tribal Background," in Nairobi: City and Region, ed. W. T. W. Morgan (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1967), 61.
44. Marvin P. Miracle, Maize in Tropical Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), 99; Lugard, Rise, 305; William Astor Chanler, Through Jungle and Desert: Travels in Eastern Africa (London: Macmillan, 1896), 105; W. T. W. Morgan, "Kikuyu and Kamba: The Tribal Background," in Nairobi: City and Region, ed. W. T. W. Morgan (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1967), 61.
45. Marvin P. Miracle, Maize in Tropical Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), 99; Lugard, Rise, 305; William Astor Chanler, Through Jungle and Desert: Travels in Eastern Africa (London: Macmillan, 1896), 105; W. T. W. Morgan, "Kikuyu and Kamba: The Tribal Background," in Nairobi: City and Region, ed. W. T. W. Morgan (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1967), 61.
46. Mackinder, Ascent, 99; Joseph Thomson, Through Masai Land (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Remington, 1887), 177; J. R. L. MacDonald, Soldiering and Surveying in East Africa, 1891-1894 (London: Edward Arnold, 1897), 109; DC/KBU 1/28: Kiambu AR (1937): 29; South Kikuyu Agriculture AR (1928): 315, 328.
47. Mackinder, Ascent, 99; Joseph Thomson, Through Masai Land (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Remington, 1887), 177; J. R. L. MacDonald, Soldiering and Surveying in East Africa, 1891-1894 (London: Edward Arnold, 1897), 109; DC/KBU 1/28: Kiambu AR (1937): 29; South Kikuyu Agriculture AR (1928): 315, 328.
48. Mackinder, Ascent, 99; Joseph Thomson, Through Masai Land (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Remington, 1887), 177; J. R. L. MacDonald, Soldiering and Surveying in East Africa, 1891-1894 (London: Edward Arnold, 1897), 109; DC/KBU 1/28: Kiambu AR (1937): 29; South Kikuyu Agriculture AR (1928): 315, 328.
49. Mackinder, Ascent, 99; Joseph Thomson, Through Masai Land (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Remington, 1887), 177; J. R. L. MacDonald, Soldiering and Surveying in East Africa, 1891-1894 (London: Edward Arnold, 1897), 109; DC/KBU 1/28: Kiambu AR (1937): 29; South Kikuyu Agriculture AR (1928): 315, 328.
50. Mackinder, Ascent, 99; Joseph Thomson, Through Masai Land (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Remington, 1887), 177; J. R. L. MacDonald, Soldiering and Surveying in East Africa, 1891-1894 (London: Edward Arnold, 1897), 109; DC/KBU 1/28: Kiambu AR (1937): 29; South Kikuyu Agriculture AR (1928): 315, 328.
51. Bean 4/XV, Report to Provincial Directors of Agriculture, 21 January 1972: 1, Ministry of Agriculture, Nairobi (hereafter MA); Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics, Integrated Rural Survey 1976-79 (Nairobi: Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics, n.d.), 111-13; William O. Jones, Marketing Staple Foods in Tropical Africa (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), 73. Phaseolus vulgaris have an average protein content of 22.3 percent compared to wheat, the best of the cereal grains at 12.3 Percent, millet at 10 percent, and maize at 8.9 percent. Rigoberto Hidalgo, Leonard Song, and Paul Gepts, The Cultivated Species of Phaseolus (Cali, Colombia: CIAT, 1986), 5.
52. Bean 4/XV, Report to Provincial Directors of Agriculture, 21 January 1972: 1, Ministry of Agriculture, Nairobi (hereafter MA); Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics, Integrated Rural Survey 1976-79 (Nairobi: Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics, n.d.), 111-13; William O. Jones, Marketing Staple Foods in Tropical Africa (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), 73. Phaseolus vulgaris have an average protein content of 22.3 percent compared to wheat, the best of the cereal grains at 12.3 Percent, millet at 10 percent, and maize at 8.9 percent. Rigoberto Hidalgo, Leonard Song, and Paul Gepts, The Cultivated Species of Phaseolus (Cali, Colombia: CIAT, 1986), 5.
53. Bean 4/XV, Report to Provincial Directors of Agriculture, 21 January 1972: 1, Ministry of Agriculture, Nairobi (hereafter MA); Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics, Integrated Rural Survey 1976-79 (Nairobi: Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics, n.d.), 111-13; William O. Jones, Marketing Staple Foods in Tropical Africa (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), 73. Phaseolus vulgaris have an average protein content of 22.3 percent compared to wheat, the best of the cereal grains at 12.3 Percent, millet at 10 percent, and maize at 8.9 percent. Rigoberto Hidalgo, Leonard Song, and Paul Gepts, The Cultivated Species of Phaseolus (Cali, Colombia: CIAT, 1986), 5.
54. Leakey, Southern Kikuyu, I: 265-66. The Nairobi Daily Nation reported on 12 June 1971 that local Kiosk restaurants might have to stop serving irio because of a bean shortage making it difficult to achieve the desirable 50 percent bean content.
55. Interviews by author in England in 1992 with Thomas Colchester, Aldeburgh, 19 October; Thomas Askwith, Cheltenham, 13 October; Elspeth Huxley, Oaksey, 12 October; Fisher, Cambridge, 14 October.
56. James Smart, A Jubilee History of Nairobi, 1900-1950 (n.p., c. 1951), 21; DC/CP 1/8/1, Nairobi Political Record Book 1899-1915, 67; Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1972), 171, 197. Maize was also probably introduced to Africa by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, but new varieties were introduced in East Africa between 1863 and 1880 and grown widely by 1900, serving as cheap food for caravans. Miracle, Maize, 23, 96-99, 137. It seems, however, to have been more common in Ukambani than in Kikuyuland. The other crop that became of particular importance in the early colonial period was English potatoes.
57. James Smart, A Jubilee History of Nairobi, 1900-1950 (n.p., c. 1951), 21; DC/CP 1/8/1, Nairobi Political Record Book 1899-1915, 67; Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1972), 171, 197. Maize was also probably introduced to Africa by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, but new varieties were introduced in East Africa between 1863 and 1880 and grown widely by 1900, serving as cheap food for caravans. Miracle, Maize, 23, 96-99, 137. It seems, however, to have been more common in Ukambani than in Kikuyuland. The other crop that became of particular importance in the early colonial period was English potatoes.
58. James Smart, A Jubilee History of Nairobi, 1900-1950 (n.p., c. 1951), 21; DC/CP 1/8/1, Nairobi Political Record Book 1899-1915, 67; Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1972), 171, 197. Maize was also probably introduced to Africa by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, but new varieties were introduced in East Africa between 1863 and 1880 and grown widely by 1900, serving as cheap food for caravans. Miracle, Maize, 23, 96-99, 137. It seems, however, to have been more common in Ukambani than in Kikuyuland. The other crop that became of particular importance in the early colonial period was English potatoes.
59. James Smart, A Jubilee History of Nairobi, 1900-1950 (n.p., c. 1951), 21; DC/CP 1/8/1, Nairobi Political Record Book 1899-1915, 67; Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1972), 171, 197. Maize was also probably introduced to Africa by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, but new varieties were introduced in East Africa between 1863 and 1880 and grown widely by 1900, serving as cheap food for caravans. Miracle, Maize, 23, 96-99, 137. It seems, however, to have been more common in Ukambani than in Kikuyuland. The other crop that became of particular importance in the early colonial period was English potatoes.
60. DC/KBU 115, Dagoretti AR (1913-14): 3; Gavin Kitching, Class and Economic Change in Kenta: The Making of an African Petite Bourgeoisie, 1905-1970 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 29, 67;
61. DC/KBU 115, Dagoretti AR (1913-14): 3; Gavin Kitching, Class and Economic Change in Kenta: The Making of an African Petite Bourgeoisie, 1905-1970 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 29, 67;
62. R. M. Maxon, John Ainsworth and the Making of Kenya (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1980), 124-26.
63. Included in Table 1 is what is now Kiambu District adjacent to Nairobi, a dominantly Kikuyu area and the focus of this study, as well as the primary areas of Kamba settlement.
64. Miracle, Maize, 28, 137-39; DC/KBU 1/9: Ukambani AR (1910): 23; Kiambu AR (1922): 45; Winston L. Cone and J. F. Lipscomb, The History of Kenyan Agriculture (Nairobi: University Press of Africa, 1972), 70 ; Mervyn F. Hill, Cream Country (Nairobi: Kenya Cooperative Creameries, 1956), 16. Europeans were often disappointed when luxuriant tropical foliage gave way to eroded friable soil in the face of methods used on heavy European soil s.
65. Miracle, Maize, 28, 137-39; DC/KBU 1/9: Ukambani AR (1910): 23; Kiambu AR (1922): 45; Winston L. Cone and J. F. Lipscomb, The History of Kenyan Agriculture (Nairobi: University Press of Africa, 1972), 70 ; Mervyn F. Hill, Cream Country (Nairobi: Kenya Cooperative Creameries, 1956), 16. Europeans were often disappointed when luxuriant tropical foliage gave way to eroded friable soil in the face of methods used on heavy European soil s.
66. Miracle, Maize, 28, 137-39; DC/KBU 1/9: Ukambani AR (1910): 23; Kiambu AR (1922): 45; Winston L. Cone and J. F. Lipscomb, The History of Kenyan Agriculture (Nairobi: University Press of Africa, 1972), 70 ; Mervyn F. Hill, Cream Country (Nairobi: Kenya Cooperative Creameries, 1956), 16. Europeans were often disappointed when luxuriant tropical foliage gave way to eroded friable soil in the face of methods used on heavy European soil s.
67. Miracle, Maize, 28, 137-39; DC/KBU 1/9: Ukambani AR (1910): 23; Kiambu AR (1922): 45; Winston L. Cone and J. F. Lipscomb, The History of Kenyan Agriculture (Nairobi: University Press of Africa, 1972), 70 ; Mervyn F. Hill, Cream Country (Nairobi: Kenya Cooperative Creameries, 1956), 16. Europeans were often disappointed when luxuriant tropical foliage gave way to eroded friable soil in the face of methods used on heavy European soil s.
68. Miracle, Maize, 28, 137-39; DC/KBU 1/9: Ukambani AR (1910): 23; Kiambu AR (1922): 45; Winston L. Cone and J. F. Lipscomb, The History of Kenyan Agriculture (Nairobi: University Press of Africa, 1972), 70 ; Mervyn F. Hill, Cream Country (Nairobi: Kenya Cooperative Creameries, 1956), 16. Europeans were often disappointed when luxuriant tropical foliage gave way to eroded friable soil in the face of methods used on heavy European soil s.
69. Miracle, Maize, 142; Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42; DC/KBU 1/1, 1/27, 1/23, 1/24, 1/29: Kiambu AR (1909-10): 6; (1930): 8; (1931): 27; (1934): 16; (1938): 32; (1939): 25; Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 12, KNA; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1936): 12.
70. Miracle, Maize, 142; Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42; DC/KBU 1/1, 1/27, 1/23, 1/24, 1/29: Kiambu AR (1909-10): 6; (1930): 8; (1931): 27; (1934): 16; (1938): 32; (1939): 25; Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 12, KNA; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1936): 12.
71. Miracle, Maize, 142; Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42; DC/KBU 1/1, 1/27, 1/23, 1/24, 1/29: Kiambu AR (1909-10): 6; (1930): 8; (1931): 27; (1934): 16; (1938): 32; (1939): 25; Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 12, KNA; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1936): 12.
72. Miracle, Maize, 142; Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42; DC/KBU 1/1, 1/27, 1/23, 1/24, 1/29: Kiambu AR (1909-10): 6; (1930): 8; (1931): 27; (1934): 16; (1938): 32; (1939): 25; Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 12, KNA; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1936): 12.
73. Miracle, Maize, 142; Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42; DC/KBU 1/1, 1/27, 1/23, 1/24, 1/29: Kiambu AR (1909-10): 6; (1930): 8; (1931): 27; (1934): 16; (1938): 32; (1939): 25; Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 12, KNA; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1936): 12.
74. Miracle, Maize, 142; Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42; DC/KBU 1/1, 1/27, 1/23, 1/24, 1/29: Kiambu AR (1909-10): 6; (1930): 8; (1931): 27; (1934): 16; (1938): 32; (1939): 25; Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 12, KNA; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1936): 12.
75. Miracle, Maize, 142; Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42; DC/KBU 1/1, 1/27, 1/23, 1/24, 1/29: Kiambu AR (1909-10): 6; (1930): 8; (1931): 27; (1934): 16; (1938): 32; (1939): 25; Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 12, KNA; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1936): 12.
76. Miracle, Maize, 142; Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42; DC/KBU 1/1, 1/27, 1/23, 1/24, 1/29: Kiambu AR (1909-10): 6; (1930): 8; (1931): 27; (1934): 16; (1938): 32; (1939): 25; Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 12, KNA; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1936): 12.
77. Miracle, Maize, 142; Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42; DC/KBU 1/1, 1/27, 1/23, 1/24, 1/29: Kiambu AR (1909-10): 6; (1930): 8; (1931): 27; (1934): 16; (1938): 32; (1939): 25; Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 12, KNA; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1936): 12.
78. Miracle, Maize, 142; Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42; DC/KBU 1/1, 1/27, 1/23, 1/24, 1/29: Kiambu AR (1909-10): 6; (1930): 8; (1931): 27; (1934): 16; (1938): 32; (1939): 25; Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 12, KNA; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1936): 12.
79. Agr 4/114, Kiambu Agriculture AR (1936): 8; Department of Agriculture AR (1942): 4, KNA; Kenya Native Affairs Department AR (1946-47): 65; DC/KBU 1/45, Kiambu District AR (1955): Appendix III; Agr 4/440, Safari Diary, 25 November 1936.
80. Agr 4/114, Kiambu Agriculture AR (1936): 8; Department of Agriculture AR (1942): 4, KNA; Kenya Native Affairs Department AR (1946-47): 65; DC/KBU 1/45, Kiambu District AR (1955): Appendix III; Agr 4/440, Safari Diary, 25 November 1936.
81. Agr 4/114, Kiambu Agriculture AR (1936): 8; Department of Agriculture AR (1942): 4, KNA; Kenya Native Affairs Department AR (1946-47): 65; DC/KBU 1/45, Kiambu District AR (1955): Appendix III; Agr 4/440, Safari Diary, 25 November 1936.
82. Agr 4/114, Kiambu Agriculture AR (1936): 8; Department of Agriculture AR (1942): 4, KNA; Kenya Native Affairs Department AR (1946-47): 65; DC/KBU 1/45, Kiambu District AR (1955): Appendix III; Agr 4/440, Safari Diary, 25 November 1936.
83. Agr 4/114, Kiambu Agriculture AR (1936): 8; Department of Agriculture AR (1942): 4, KNA; Kenya Native Affairs Department AR (1946-47): 65; DC/KBU 1/45, Kiambu District AR (1955): Appendix III; Agr 4/440, Safari Diary, 25 November 1936.
84. Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 34, KNA; DAO/KBU 1/1/218, correspondence, 17, 25 February 1960; Ministry of Planning and Development, Agriculture and Livestock Compendium (June 1989): 39; AA 13/1/8/9, Nairobi Extra-Provincial AR (1954): 19. Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), I: 30-31, confirmed the contemporary ubiquity of bean cultivation but did not bother to show the area on its crop map, while highlighting maize.
85. Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 34, KNA; DAO/KBU 1/1/218, correspondence, 17, 25 February 1960; Ministry of Planning and Development, Agriculture and Livestock Compendium (June 1989): 39; AA 13/1/8/9, Nairobi Extra-Provincial AR (1954): 19. Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), I: 30-31, confirmed the contemporary ubiquity of bean cultivation but did not bother to show the area on its crop map, while highlighting maize.
86. Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 34, KNA; DAO/KBU 1/1/218, correspondence, 17, 25 February 1960; Ministry of Planning and Development, Agriculture and Livestock Compendium (June 1989): 39; AA 13/1/8/9, Nairobi Extra-Provincial AR (1954): 19. Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), I: 30-31, confirmed the contemporary ubiquity of bean cultivation but did not bother to show the area on its crop map, while highlighting maize.
87. Department of Agriculture AR (1958), I: 34, KNA; DAO/KBU 1/1/218, correspondence, 17, 25 February 1960; Ministry of Planning and Development, Agriculture and Livestock Compendium (June 1989): 39; AA 13/1/8/9, Nairobi Extra-Provincial AR (1954): 19. Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), I: 30-31, confirmed the contemporary ubiquity of bean cultivation but did not bother to show the area on its crop map, while highlighting maize.
88. Interviews by author in Nairobi, 1988: Blundell, 10 September; Desmond O'Hagan, 8 November; Hill, Cream Country, 3; Department of Agriculture AR (1962), II: 54, KNA; Brockway, Science.
89. Interviews by author in Nairobi, 1988: Blundell, 10 September; Desmond O'Hagan, 8 November; Hill, Cream Country, 3; Department of Agriculture AR (1962), II: 54, KNA; Brockway, Science.
90. Kitching, Class, 30, and
91. M. P. K. Sorrenson, Origins of European Settlement in Kenya (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1968), 156, said that Kikuyu got potato stock illicitly from Fort Hall, but Miracle, Maize, 26, says that the British administration forced the Kikuyu to grow potatoes from 1901 to 1905. Unfortunately, the precolonial and early colonial history of bean seed introduction by Africans appears to be lost; in the early 1960s Miracle failed in efforts to collect any useful information on the subject, although he noticed that people were always looking for new seeds to try. Personal communication with Miracle, 2 October 1992; and Miracle, Maize, 28. Little information about African seed introduction came from my interviews, although I was told that women at Ndeiya in Kiambu introduced coriander and chickpeas in the 1950s, which they may have gotten from Mwea in Kirinyaga where contacts with Kamba were common. Ukambani is now the primary area for chickpea and coriander production. One woman at Ngara obtained a new variety of popcorn from me to try at her request .
92. Kudzu, for example, was tried in 1931, but happily failed. Department of Agriculture AR (1931): 155, KNA; Agr 4/239, senior agriculture officer, Pasture Research, to agriculture officer, Machakos, 28 June 1949.
93. Miracle, Maize, 28; Leakey, interview by author, 15 October 1992. In 1899 Canon Leakey, a Church Missionary Society missionary, introduced apples, plums, and strawberries at Kabete; another missionary imported fruit trees, and a railway engineer at Nairobi started a European-type vegetable garden. Mackinder, Ascent, 90, 96. Agricultural innovations introduced by missionaries need systematic documentation by region, which goes beyond the scope of this project; R. A. W. Procter, "The Kikuyu Market and Kikuyu Diet," Kenya Medical Journal 3 (1926): 16.
94. Miracle, Maize, 28; Leakey, interview by author, 15 October 1992. In 1899 Canon Leakey, a Church Missionary Society missionary, introduced apples, plums, and strawberries at Kabete; another missionary imported fruit trees, and a railway engineer at Nairobi started a European-type vegetable garden. Mackinder, Ascent, 90, 96. Agricultural innovations introduced by missionaries need systematic documentation by region, which goes beyond the scope of this project; R. A. W. Procter, "The Kikuyu Market and Kikuyu Diet," Kenya Medical Journal 3 (1926): 16.
95. Miracle, Maize, 28; Leakey, interview by author, 15 October 1992. In 1899 Canon Leakey, a Church Missionary Society missionary, introduced apples, plums, and strawberries at Kabete; another missionary imported fruit trees, and a railway engineer at Nairobi started a European-type vegetable garden. Mackinder, Ascent, 90, 96. Agricultural innovations introduced by missionaries need systematic documentation by region, which goes beyond the scope of this project; R. A. W. Procter, "The Kikuyu Market and Kikuyu Diet," Kenya Medical Journal 3 (1926): 16.
96. Miracle, Maize, 28; Leakey, interview by author, 15 October 1992. In 1899 Canon Leakey, a Church Missionary Society missionary, introduced apples, plums, and strawberries at Kabete; another missionary imported fruit trees, and a railway engineer at Nairobi started a European-type vegetable garden. Mackinder, Ascent, 90, 96. Agricultural innovations introduced by missionaries need systematic documentation by region, which goes beyond the scope of this project; R. A. W. Procter, "The Kikuyu Market and Kikuyu Diet," Kenya Medical Journal 3 (1926): 16.
97. Department of Agriculture AR (1931): 67; (1933): 64, 94; (1934), I: 64, KNA. All names are found in the Agriculture Department's annual reports between 1929 and 1973.
98. Department of Agriculture AR (1931): 67; (1933): 64, 94; (1934), I: 64, KNA. All names are found in the Agriculture Department's annual reports between 1929 and 1973.
99. Department of Agriculture AR (1931): 67; (1933): 64, 94; (1934), I: 64, KNA. All names are found in the Agriculture Department's annual reports between 1929 and 1973.
100. Agr 4/319, senior plant breeder and experimentalist to agriculture officers Nyeri, Kisumu, Kibaroni, Njoro, 29 January 1935, and reply from W. G. Leckie, senior agriculture officer, Central Province, 2 February 1935; personal communication with Leakey, 13 November 1992.
101. Juma, Hunters, 184; Kloppenburg, Seed;
102. Juma, Hunters, 184; Kloppenburg, Seed;
103. Michigan State University, Bean/Cowpea CRSP, AR (1983): 86-87.
104. Agr 4/239: agriculture officer, Horticulture, to assistant agriculture officer, Embu, 15 May 1953; Kiambu Agriculture AR (1962): 3;
105. Daily Nation, 27 May 1988, 14.
106. There was also a large round red bean, probably a Bambara groundnut, from western Kenya. Lima or butter beans are usually Phaseolus lunatus, but in Kenya seem to be Phaseolus coccineus introduced from South Africa. Leakey, interview by author, 15 October 1992.
107. There were also occasional-to-rare occurrences of the following: kameru, mukairu, gishora or zebra (black and white kidney), gasharika (small black or rose and white), kaforo, kathoro or kaboro, a medium-sized mottled purple and cream Phaseolus variety, and ndumu.
108. In Rwanda women farmers selected, bred, and cultivated over 200 varieties of Phaseolus without influence by an agriculture department. Voss, interview by author, 30 July 1988. Kenyan efforts to develop a Kenyan seed bean industry only began in the 1930s and largely failed, causing occasional seed bean shortages. See Table 3.
109. DC/KBU 1/1, 1/3, 1/4: Kiambu AR (1907-8): 2-3; Kiambu Quarterly Report (1911): M; Dagoretti Handing Over Report (1912-13): 11; PC/CP 4/2/1, Ukambani AR (1914-15): 14; DAO/KBU 1/1/218, deputy director, Plant Industry, to agriculture officer, Central Province, 9 Mar 1934. Colin L. A. Leakey, "The Improvement of Beans in East Africa," unpub. paper, 100, assumed that a preference for pale-colored beans was universal. Kikuyu skin color has sometimes been called red.
110. DC/KBU 1/1, 1/3, 1/4: Kiambu AR (1907-8): 2-3; Kiambu Quarterly Report (1911): M; Dagoretti Handing Over Report (1912-13): 11; PC/CP 4/2/1, Ukambani AR (1914-15): 14; DAO/KBU 1/1/218, deputy director, Plant Industry, to agriculture officer, Central Province, 9 Mar 1934. Colin L. A. Leakey, "The Improvement of Beans in East Africa," unpub. paper, 100, assumed that a preference for pale-colored beans was universal. Kikuyu skin color has sometimes been called red.
111. DC/KBU 1/1, 1/3, 1/4: Kiambu AR (1907-8): 2-3; Kiambu Quarterly Report (1911): M; Dagoretti Handing Over Report (1912-13): 11; PC/CP 4/2/1, Ukambani AR (1914-15): 14; DAO/KBU 1/1/218, deputy director, Plant Industry, to agriculture officer, Central Province, 9 Mar 1934. Colin L. A. Leakey, "The Improvement of Beans in East Africa," unpub. paper, 100, assumed that a preference for pale-colored beans was universal. Kikuyu skin color has sometimes been called red.
112. DC/KBU 1/1, 1/3, 1/4: Kiambu AR (1907-8): 2-3; Kiambu Quarterly Report (1911): M; Dagoretti Handing Over Report (1912-13): 11; PC/CP 4/2/1, Ukambani AR (1914-15): 14; DAO/KBU 1/1/218, deputy director, Plant Industry, to agriculture officer, Central Province, 9 Mar 1934. Colin L. A. Leakey, "The Improvement of Beans in East Africa," unpub. paper, 100, assumed that a preference for pale-colored beans was universal. Kikuyu skin color has sometimes been called red.
113. DC/KBU 1/1, 1/3, 1/4: Kiambu AR (1907-8): 2-3; Kiambu Quarterly Report (1911): M; Dagoretti Handing Over Report (1912-13): 11; PC/CP 4/2/1, Ukambani AR (1914-15): 14; DAO/KBU 1/1/218, deputy director, Plant Industry, to agriculture officer, Central Province, 9 Mar 1934. Colin L. A. Leakey, "The Improvement of Beans in East Africa," unpub. paper, 100, assumed that a preference for pale-colored beans was universal. Kikuyu skin color has sometimes been called red.
114. Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1937): 2; DAO/KBU 1/1/257, correspondence, agriculture officers, Kiambu, (1935-37); DC/KBU 1/16, Kiambu AR (1923): n.p.; Agr 4/114, Agriculture AR (1936): 1; Agr 4/500, correspondence, 15, 23 October 1942, 31 March 1943; Agr 4/319, correspondence agriculture officer, Central Province, to deputy director, Plant Industry, and agriculture officers, Embu, Meru, 19-20 February 1936; Leakey, interviews by author, 15 October 1992, 13 November 1992.
115. Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1937): 2; DAO/KBU 1/1/257, correspondence, agriculture officers, Kiambu, (1935-37); DC/KBU 1/16, Kiambu AR (1923): n.p.; Agr 4/114, Agriculture AR (1936): 1; Agr 4/500, correspondence, 15, 23 October 1942, 31 March 1943; Agr 4/319, correspondence agriculture officer, Central Province, to deputy director, Plant Industry, and agriculture officers, Embu, Meru, 19-20 February 1936; Leakey, interviews by author, 15 October 1992, 13 November 1992.
116. Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1937): 2; DAO/KBU 1/1/257, correspondence, agriculture officers, Kiambu, (1935-37); DC/KBU 1/16, Kiambu AR (1923): n.p.; Agr 4/114, Agriculture AR (1936): 1; Agr 4/500, correspondence, 15, 23 October 1942, 31 March 1943; Agr 4/319, correspondence agriculture officer, Central Province, to deputy director, Plant Industry, and agriculture officers, Embu, Meru, 19-20 February 1936; Leakey, interviews by author, 15 October 1992, 13 November 1992.
117. DC/KBU 1/46, Kiambu AR (1959): 20; DC/KBU 1/50, Kiambu AR (1964): 5; Bean 4/XV, agriculture research officer, Katumani, to chief research officer, Ministry of Agriculture, 20 December 1971, MA.
118. DC/KBU 1/46, Kiambu AR (1959): 20; DC/KBU 1/50, Kiambu AR (1964): 5; Bean 4/XV, agriculture research officer, Katumani, to chief research officer, Ministry of Agriculture, 20 December 1971, MA.
119. Personal communications with Paul Kelly, 14 October 1992; Leakey, 13 November 1991 The Mexico 142 export effort appears to have been an EAAFRO program. Roger Kirkby, interview by author, Nairobi, 18 July 1988, and Leakey, interview by author, 15 October 1992, described breeding nyayo's progenitors in Uganda when he was under contract to the Uganda governrnera working with Samwere Mukasa at Kawanda Research Station in the 1960s.
120. Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1940): 2; (1939): 2; N. Humphrey, "Thoughts On the Foundation of Future Prosperity in the Kikuyu Lands," in The Kikuyu Lands (Kenya Colony), ED. n. Humphrey (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1945), 26-27, 33.
121. Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1940): 2; (1939): 2; N. Humphrey, "Thoughts On the Foundation of Future Prosperity in the Kikuyu Lands," in The Kikuyu Lands (Kenya Colony), ED. n. Humphrey (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1945), 26-27, 33.
122. Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1940): 2; (1939): 2; N. Humphrey, "Thoughts On the Foundation of Future Prosperity in the Kikuyu Lands," in The Kikuyu Lands (Kenya Colony), ED. n. Humphrey (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1945), 26-27, 33.
123. CroSby, Exchange, 172; Voss, interview by author, 30 July 1988.
124. This may have been a pun referring both to his eating habits and his trade in beans, to eat meaning "to assimilate to one's benefit," i.e., profit. John Boyes, King of the Wa-Kikuyu (1911; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1968), 302; Huxley, Strangers, viii.
125. This may have been a pun referring both to his eating habits and his trade in beans, to eat meaning "to assimilate to one's benefit," i.e., profit. John Boyes, King of the Wa-Kikuyu (1911; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1968), 302; Huxley, Strangers, viii.
126. Mackinder, Ascent, 140. Possibly this is a misidentification and pigeon peas were meant Jackson, Early Days, 170, also mentions kundi as part of the rations in the late nineteenth century, as well as maize, millet of several kinds, sweet potatoes, and pigeon peas (bazi); A. Arkell-Hardwick, An Ivory Trader in North Kenya (London: Longman, Green, 1903), 31.
127. Mackinder, Ascent, 140. Possibly this is a misidentification and pigeon peas were meant Jackson, Early Days, 170, also mentions kundi as part of the rations in the late nineteenth century, as well as maize, millet of several kinds, sweet potatoes, and pigeon peas (bazi); A. Arkell-Hardwick, An Ivory Trader in North Kenya (London: Longman, Green, 1903), 31.
128. Department of Agriculture AR (1929): 622, KNA; Agr 4/239: provincial agriculture officer, Central Province, to senior assistant agriculture officer, Fort Hall, 28 May 1951; agriculture officer, Embu, and senior agriculture officer, Central Province, August-December 1948.
129. Leakey, Southern Kikuyu, I: 19, 175, 182; T. G. Benson, ed., Kikuyu-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 31.
130. Leakey, Southern Kikuyu, I: 19, 175, 182; T. G. Benson, ed., Kikuyu-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 31.
131. Fisher, Anatomy, 229-30. Researchers appear to have been notably careless when identifying beans, perhaps due to lack of sufficient consultation with women. Hoorweg and Niemeyer even claimed that Kikuyu women do not distinguish between legumes; Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), IV: Appendix 4: 3. Examples of misidentification of beans include: one agricultural official called Boston beans limas, confusing Phaseolus vulgaris with lunatus (Agr 4/313, memo., 11 February 1936); Jean Davison, Voices from Mutira: lives of Rural Gikuyu Women (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989), 9, called njahe pigeon peas; an agricultural officer in Ukambani, perhaps influenced by his potations, called Noyeau Blanc (white haricot) Noilly Blanc, PC/CP 4/2/2, Ukambani AR (1915-16): 13; Godfrey Muriuki, The History of the Kikuyu, 1500-1900 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1974), 33, called njugu cowpeas; Greenway, "Origins," 178-79, supposedly an expert on plants, said that chickpeas were called ndengu (my
132. Fisher, Anatomy, 229-30. Researchers appear to have been notably careless when identifying beans, perhaps due to lack of sufficient consultation with women. Hoorweg and Niemeyer even claimed that Kikuyu women do not distinguish between legumes; Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), IV: Appendix 4: 3. Examples of misidentification of beans include: one agricultural official called Boston beans limas, confusing Phaseolus vulgaris with lunatus (Agr 4/313, memo., 11 February 1936); Jean Davison, Voices from Mutira: lives of Rural Gikuyu Women (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989), 9, called njahe pigeon peas; an agricultural officer in Ukambani, perhaps influenced by his potations, called Noyeau Blanc (white haricot) Noilly Blanc, PC/CP 4/2/2, Ukambani AR (1915-16): 13; Godfrey Muriuki, The History of the Kikuyu, 1500-1900 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1974), 33, called njugu cowpeas; Greenway, "Origins," 178-79, supposedly an expert on plants, said that chickpeas were called ndengu (my informants used that term for green grams or mung beans and called chickpeas sina) and, most egregious of all, called njahe butter beans. Gerhard Lindblom, preeminent ethnographer of the Kamba, called njahe Phaseolus lunatus, or limas, and listed a number of other problematic identifications in The Akamba in British East Africa (Uppsala: Archives d'Etudes Orientales, 1920), XVII: 505.1 was not able to identify kiburi, gaceru, or karura, which means that they may no longer be available but says nothing about their origin .
133. Fisher, Anatomy, 229-30. Researchers appear to have been notably careless when identifying beans, perhaps due to lack of sufficient consultation with women. Hoorweg and Niemeyer even claimed that Kikuyu women do not distinguish between legumes; Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), IV: Appendix 4: 3. Examples of misidentification of beans include: one agricultural official called Boston beans limas, confusing Phaseolus vulgaris with lunatus (Agr 4/313, memo., 11 February 1936); Jean Davison, Voices from Mutira: lives of Rural Gikuyu Women (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989), 9, called njahe pigeon peas; an agricultural officer in Ukambani, perhaps influenced by his potations, called Noyeau Blanc (white haricot) Noilly Blanc, PC/CP 4/2/2, Ukambani AR (1915-16): 13; Godfrey Muriuki, The History of the Kikuyu, 1500-1900 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1974), 33, called njugu cowpeas; Greenway, "Origins," 178-79, supposedly an expert on plants, said that chickpeas were called ndengu (my informants used that term for green grams or mung beans and called chickpeas sina) and, most egregious of all, called njahe butter beans. Gerhard Lindblom, preeminent ethnographer of the Kamba, called njahe Phaseolus lunatus, or limas, and listed a number of other problematic identifications in The Akamba in British East Africa (Uppsala: Archives d'Etudes Orientales, 1920), XVII: 505.1 was not able to identify kiburi, gaceru, or karura, which means that they may no longer be available but says nothing about their origin .
134. Fisher, Anatomy, 229-30. Researchers appear to have been notably careless when identifying beans, perhaps due to lack of sufficient consultation with women. Hoorweg and Niemeyer even claimed that Kikuyu women do not distinguish between legumes; Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), IV: Appendix 4: 3. Examples of misidentification of beans include: one agricultural official called Boston beans limas, confusing Phaseolus vulgaris with lunatus (Agr 4/313, memo., 11 February 1936); Jean Davison, Voices from Mutira: lives of Rural Gikuyu Women (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989), 9, called njahe pigeon peas; an agricultural officer in Ukambani, perhaps influenced by his potations, called Noyeau Blanc (white haricot) Noilly Blanc, PC/CP 4/2/2, Ukambani AR (1915-16): 13; Godfrey Muriuki, The History of the Kikuyu, 1500-1900 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1974), 33, called njugu cowpeas; Greenway, "Origins," 178-79, supposedly an expert on plants, said that chickpeas were called ndengu (my informants used that term for green grams or mung beans and called chickpeas sina) and, most egregious of all, called njahe butter beans. Gerhard Lindblom, preeminent ethnographer of the Kamba, called njahe Phaseolus lunatus, or limas, and listed a number of other problematic identifications in The Akamba in British East Africa (Uppsala: Archives d'Etudes Orientales, 1920), XVII: 505.1 was not able to identify kiburi, gaceru, or karura, which means that they may no longer be available but says nothing about their origin .
135. Fisher, Anatomy, 229-30. Researchers appear to have been notably careless when identifying beans, perhaps due to lack of sufficient consultation with women. Hoorweg and Niemeyer even claimed that Kikuyu women do not distinguish between legumes; Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), IV: Appendix 4: 3. Examples of misidentification of beans include: one agricultural official called Boston beans limas, confusing Phaseolus vulgaris with lunatus (Agr 4/313, memo., 11 February 1936); Jean Davison, Voices from Mutira: lives of Rural Gikuyu Women (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989), 9, called njahe pigeon peas; an agricultural officer in Ukambani, perhaps influenced by his potations, called Noyeau Blanc (white haricot) Noilly Blanc, PC/CP 4/2/2, Ukambani AR (1915-16): 13; Godfrey Muriuki, The History of the Kikuyu, 1500-1900 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1974), 33, called njugu cowpeas; Greenway, "Origins," 178-79, supposedly an expert on plants, said that chickpeas were called ndengu (my informants used that term for green grams or mung beans and called chickpeas sina) and, most egregious of all, called njahe butter beans. Gerhard Lindblom, preeminent ethnographer of the Kamba, called njahe Phaseolus lunatus, or limas, and listed a number of other problematic identifications in The Akamba in British East Africa (Uppsala: Archives d'Etudes Orientales, 1920), XVII: 505.1 was not able to identify kiburi, gaceru, or karura, which means that they may no longer be available but says nothing about their origin .
136. Fisher, Anatomy, 229-30. Researchers appear to have been notably careless when identifying beans, perhaps due to lack of sufficient consultation with women. Hoorweg and Niemeyer even claimed that Kikuyu women do not distinguish between legumes; Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), IV: Appendix 4: 3. Examples of misidentification of beans include: one agricultural official called Boston beans limas, confusing Phaseolus vulgaris with lunatus (Agr 4/313, memo., 11 February 1936); Jean Davison, Voices from Mutira: lives of Rural Gikuyu Women (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989), 9, called njahe pigeon peas; an agricultural officer in Ukambani, perhaps influenced by his potations, called Noyeau Blanc (white haricot) Noilly Blanc, PC/CP 4/2/2, Ukambani AR (1915-16): 13; Godfrey Muriuki, The History of the Kikuyu, 1500-1900 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1974), 33, called njugu cowpeas; Greenway, "Origins," 178-79, supposedly an expert on plants, said that chickpeas were called ndengu (my informants used that term for green grams or mung beans and called chickpeas sina) and, most egregious of all, called njahe butter beans. Gerhard Lindblom, preeminent ethnographer of the Kamba, called njahe Phaseolus lunatus, or limas, and listed a number of other problematic identifications in The Akamba in British East Africa (Uppsala: Archives d'Etudes Orientales, 1920), XVII: 505.1 was not able to identify kiburi, gaceru, or karura, which means that they may no longer be available but says nothing about their origin .
137. Fisher, Anatomy, 229-30. Researchers appear to have been notably careless when identifying beans, perhaps due to lack of sufficient consultation with women. Hoorweg and Niemeyer even claimed that Kikuyu women do not distinguish between legumes; Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Kenya (n.d.), IV: Appendix 4: 3. Examples of misidentification of beans include: one agricultural official called Boston beans limas, confusing Phaseolus vulgaris with lunatus (Agr 4/313, memo., 11 February 1936); Jean Davison, Voices from Mutira: lives of Rural Gikuyu Women (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989), 9, called njahe pigeon peas; an agricultural officer in Ukambani, perhaps influenced by his potations, called Noyeau Blanc (white haricot) Noilly Blanc, PC/CP 4/2/2, Ukambani AR (1915-16): 13; Godfrey Muriuki, The History of the Kikuyu, 1500-1900 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1974), 33, called njugu cowpeas; Greenway, "Origins," 178-79, supposedly an expert on plants, said that chickpeas were called ndengu (my informants used that term for green grams or mung beans and called chickpeas sina) and, most egregious of all, called njahe butter beans. Gerhard Lindblom, preeminent ethnographer of the Kamba, called njahe Phaseolus lunatus, or limas, and listed a number of other problematic identifications in The Akamba in British East Africa (Uppsala: Archives d'Etudes Orientales, 1920), XVII: 505.1 was not able to identify kiburi, gaceru, or karura, which means that they may no longer be available but says nothing about their origin .
138. Agr 4/527, correspondence, 5 May 1939.
139. These may be tepary beans (Phaseolus acutifolius), introduced by the colonialists in the 1930s. Leakey, interview by author, 15 October 1992.
140. DAO/KBU 1/1/218, assistant agriculture officer, Kiambu, to director, East African Agricultural Research, Amani, 25 August 1939. Michael Schluter, "Constraints on Kenya's Food and Beverage Exports," University of Nairobi Institute for Development Studies/International Food Policy Research Institute, Occasional Paper No. 43 (1984), 78, does not define what is meant by traditional here.
141. This contradicts J. M. Suttie's assertion, "A Review of Crop Introduction in Kenya and a Checklist of Crops," East African Agricultural and Forestry Journal 35, no. 4 (1970): 373, that all major food crops had been introduced fifty or more years previously.
142. Interview by author #728, Gitaru market, 3 August 1988. When I tried a similar experiment myself at Kiambu market by purchasing a kilo of nyayo beans on 4 November 1988 and sorting out the odd ones, these included: zebra, purple and cream, gituru, gikara, njikariathe, kameru, gasharika, but also small black and white sported ones, red and brown kidneys, small mottled black on brown, and small brownish red ones, for instance, a total of fifteen other Phaseolus bean varieties. Beans do not crossbreed easily but must be hand pollinated or selected; variability is relaively small but does occur and allow for the development of alternate strains. There exist, then, the possibilities for experimentation, but the experimenters seem rare. Gepts, "Evidence," 33;
143. Leakey, interview by author, 15 October 1992.
144. Interviews by author: A, Wangige market, 9 June 1988; #453, Wangige market, 6 June 1988; #59, Ngara bean market, 25 October 1987.
145. Voss, interview by author, 30 July 1988; Ferguson and Sprecher, "Women," 10.
146. Anne E. Ferguson and Susan L. Sprecher, "Component Breeding: A Strategy for Bean Improvement in Eastern Africa and Other Regions Where Beans are Grown as Mixtures," paper presented at Michigan State University Bean/Cowpea CRSP (September 1989), 3.
147. The 1904 report of the Kenya director of agriculture stated, "The Wakikuyu near Fort Hall [Murang'a] are very regular cultivators, the crops usually being planted unmixed in straight rows, which is very uncommon." He went on to say that Phaseolus were becoming an important crop. Cone and Lipscomb, History, 42.
148. L. S. B. Leakey, Kenya Contrasts and Problems (Cambridge: Schenkman, 1966), 118-23.
149. Juma, Hunters, 190; interview by author, #663, Kangemi market, 21 July 1988.
150. The standard bag size is 200 pounds, or 90 kilograms. Agr 4/319, memo., (29 January 1936).
151. Personal communication with F. A. Bliss, 25 June 1992; Agr 4/114, Kiambu Agriculture AA (1936): 5; Agr 4/319, deputy director, Produce Inspection, to agriculture officer, Nyeri, 21 December 1936.
152. Agr 4/334, Leckie, agriculture officer, Central Province, "Report on Produce Inspection, 1935," 1; DAO/KBU 1/1/257, agriculture officer, Kiambu, to agriculture officer, Central Province. 13 August 1935; Agr 4/319: senior agriculture officer, Central Province, to acting deputy director of agriculture, Nairobi, September 1938; agriculture officer, Meru, to agriculture officer, Central Province, 15 September 1936.
153. Agr 4/334: Leckie, "Report," 4; assistant agriculture officer, Embu, to agriculture officer, Central Province, 20 July 1936. Huxley, Strangers, 378, described women being forced to begin sorting beans in the 1930s because of inspection. Agr 4/114, memo, to deputy director, Produce Inspection, 20 April 1937. White settler farmers sometimes sold African-grown maize as European-grown to secure a better price.
154. DAO/KBU 1/1/218: Mwaura Ngoima to assistant agriculture officer, Kiambu, 13, 18, 30 March 1937; senior agriculture officer, Central Province, to agriculture officers, Central Province, 3 September 1937; Agr 4/527, senior agriculture officer, Central Province, to produce controller, Nairobi, 4 October 1943; Fisher, interview by author, 14 October 1992.
155. Agr 4/574, agriculture officer, Embu, to senior agriculture officer, Central Province, 3 February 1939; Agr 4/527, district commissioner, Embu, to provincial commissioner, Central Province, 9 February 1939.
156. In 1959 Boston beans were also being encouraged, despite poor local demand. DAO/KBU 1/1/218, general manager, Central Province Marketing Board, to agriculture, marketing, and storage officers and district commissioners, Central Province, 3 November 1959; Fisher, interview by author, 14 October 1992; Leakey, interview by author, 21 October 1992.
157. Agr 4/514, assistant agriculture officer, Meru, to Meru traders, 15 July 1941; Agr 4/527, assistant agriculture officer, Meru, to senior agriculture officer, Nyeri, 8 October 1942.
158. Agr 4/409, correspondence, 31 December 1947. Even those not partial to njahe complained about maize mining. See Agr 4/510, correspondence from acting provincial agriculture officer, Central Province. The apparent sincerity of those who opposed maise mining contradicts thw assertion of David Anderson, "Depression, Dust Bowl, Demography and Drought: The Colonial State and Soil Conservation in East Africa During the 1930s," African Affairs 83 (July 1984): 324, that soil conservation efforts at this level were simply a mask for the issue of the sanctity of the White Highlands.
159. Agr 4/409, senior agriculture officer, Central Province, to director of agriculture, Nairobi, 12 December 1947; Agr 4/239, senior agriculture officer, Pasture Research, to agriculture officer, Machakos, 28 June 1949; DC/KBU 1/9, Kiambu AR (1915-16): 42.
160. Michael Cowen and Nicholas Westcott, "British Imperial Policy During the War," in Africa and the Second World War, ed. D. Killingray and R. Rathbone (New York: St. Martin's, 1986), 20-21, 58-59; Agr 4/239, agriculture officer, Embu, to provincial agriculture officer, Central Province, 7, 26 February 1952.
161. D. J. Casley and T. J. Marchant, "Smallholder Marketing in Kenya," UNDP/FAO Project Working Document (Nairobi: Government of Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics, 1979), See.I.12, pointed out that in 1974-75, 95 percent of Kenya's smallholders were growing maize, 98 percent beans, the highest proportion for any crop.
162. The hardening is due to chemical changes. Siegfried Schonherr and Erastus S. Mbugua, "Bean Production in Kenya's Central and Eastern Provinces," University of Nairobi Institute for Development Studies, Occasional Paper No. 23 (1976), 9, 12; Colin L. A. Leakey, "Report to H. J. Heinz on . . . pea beans from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa" (7 February 1974) in Leakey's possession; Leakey, interview by author, 15 October 1992.
163. The hardening is due to chemical changes. Siegfried Schonherr and Erastus S. Mbugua, "Bean Production in Kenya's Central and Eastern Provinces," University of Nairobi Institute for Development Studies, Occasional Paper No. 23 (1976), 9, 12; Colin L. A. Leakey, "Report to H. J. Heinz on . . . pea beans from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa" (7 February 1974) in Leakey's possession; Leakey, interview by author, 15 October 1992.
164. Agr 4/319, agriculture officer, Central Province, to Messrs. Gibson & Co., 28 September 1934.
165. The success of the Nazi Polish campaign was attributed partly to the use of soy food products, as was the survival of POWs in the Hong Kong jail. DAO/KBU 1/1/218, British Medical Journal 23 August 1941; Agr 4/239, acting provincial agriculture officer, Central Province, to J. J. Peterson, 19 October 1950.
166. Their testing probably began in the late 1920s. Department of Agriculture AS (1929): 588-89, KNA; A. K. Auckland, "Soya Bean Improvement in East Africa," in Common Beans: Research for Crop Improvement, ed. A. Van Schoonhoven and O. Voyseat (Oxford: CAB International, CIAT, 1991), 135,150;
167. Their testing probably began in the late 1920s. Department of Agriculture AS (1929): 588-89, KNA; A. K. Auckland, "Soya Bean Improvement in East Africa," in Common Beans: Research for Crop Improvement, ed. A. Van Schoonhoven and O. Voyseat (Oxford: CAB International, CIAT, 1991), 135,150;
168. Agr 4/527, agriculture officer, Plant Breeding Station, Njora, to director of agriculture, Nairobi, 14 May 1940; M. O. Were, head, Crop Production, Ministry of Agriculture, interview by author, Nairobi, 13 July 1988; Daily Nation, 29 June 1988, 19.
169. L. H. Brown, A National Cash Crops Policy for Kenya (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1963), 9, 87; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1937): 12; Agr 4/319, acting director of agriculture to agriculture officer, Central Province, 17 September 1937; Bean 5/VII, crop development officer to permanent secretary of agriculture, 8 November 1968, MA; head, Crop Production Development, to director of agriculture, 7 September 1972; interview by author, Njugunah, Nairobi, 29 September 1988.
170. L. H. Brown, A National Cash Crops Policy for Kenya (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1963), 9, 87; Agr 4/114, Central Province Agriculture AR (1937): 12; Agr 4/319, acting director of agriculture to agriculture officer, Central Province, 17 September 1937; Bean 5/VII, crop development officer to permanent secretary of agriculture, 8 November 1968, MA; head, Crop Production Development, to director of agriculture, 7 September 1972; interview by author, Njugunah, Nairobi, 29 September 1988.
171. Bean 1/II: chief agriculturalist to Kenya Farmers' Association and assistant directors of agriculture, all provinces, 24 January 1964; correspondence, 16 September 1970, October 1970, MA; Bean 4/XV, correspondence, 7 October 1974, MA; Bean 1/II, S. K. Njugunah, Thika National Horticultural Research Station, to chief, Crop Production Division, Ministry of Agriculture, 6 March 1979, MA.
172. Interviews by author: Were, 13 July 1988; J. Migunda, operations director, Maize and Cereals Produce Board, Nairobi, 10 August 1988; O. Odok, Nairobi, 13 July 1988; MA/12/80, Kiambu AR (1949): 45.
173. Interviews by author: Were, 13 July 1988; J. Migunda, operations director, Maize and Cereals Produce Board, Nairobi, 10 August 1988; O. Odok, Nairobi, 13 July 1988; MA/12/80, Kiambu AR (1949): 45.
174. Interviews by author: Were, 13 July 1988; J. Migunda, operations director, Maize and Cereals Produce Board, Nairobi, 10 August 1988; O. Odok, Nairobi, 13 July 1988; MA/12/80, Kiambu AR (1949): 45.
175. Juma, Hunters, 190; H. A. van Rheenen, "Diversity of Food Beans in Kenya," Economic Botany 33, no. 4 (1979): 453. In this context the usual technocratic explanation for failure to develop bean exports seems limited. Schluter, "Constraints," 10, claimed that poor quality determined the lack of an export market from 1971 to 1981, which he attributed to "the absence of strong vertical linkages in the information chain from the world market back to the research and extension system." Interview by author #585, Kawangware market, 7 June 1988; Ben Wisner, "Man-Made Famine in Eastern Kenya: The Interrelationship of Environment and Development," University of Sussex Institute for Development Studies, Discussion Paper No. 96 (July 1976), 25.
176. Juma, Hunters, 190; H. A. van Rheenen, "Diversity of Food Beans in Kenya," Economic Botany 33, no. 4 (1979): 453. In this context the usual technocratic explanation for failure to develop bean exports seems limited. Schluter, "Constraints," 10, claimed that poor quality determined the lack of an export market from 1971 to 1981, which he attributed to "the absence of strong vertical linkages in the information chain from the world market back to the research and extension system." Interview by author #585, Kawangware market, 7 June 1988; Ben Wisner, "Man-Made Famine in Eastern Kenya: The Interrelationship of Environment and Development," University of Sussex Institute for Development Studies, Discussion Paper No. 96 (July 1976), 25.
177. Juma, Hunters, 190; H. A. van Rheenen, "Diversity of Food Beans in Kenya," Economic Botany 33, no. 4 (1979): 453. In this context the usual technocratic explanation for failure to develop bean exports seems limited. Schluter, "Constraints," 10, claimed that poor quality determined the lack of an export market from 1971 to 1981, which he attributed to "the absence of strong vertical linkages in the information chain from the world market back to the research and extension system." Interview by author #585, Kawangware market, 7 June 1988; Ben Wisner, "Man-Made Famine in Eastern Kenya: The Interrelationship of Environment and Development," University of Sussex Institute for Development Studies, Discussion Paper No. 96 (July 1976), 25.
178. Colin L. A. Leakey, "Factors Affecting Increased Production and Marketing of Food Crops in Uganda," Journal of Rural Development 4 (1972): 4; Leakey, interview by author, 21 October 1992; Robertson, Trouble Showed the Way.
179. Colin L. A. Leakey, "Factors Affecting Increased Production and Marketing of Food Crops in Uganda," Journal of Rural Development 4 (1972): 4; Leakey, interview by author, 21 October 1992; Robertson, Trouble Showed the Way.
180. Richard D. Wolff, Britain and Kenya, 1870-1930 (Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers, 1974), 86.
181. International male dominance is extreme in the field of agriculture, for which U.S. influence is largely responsible, especially through USAID and land-grant university programs. Until very recently women formed a smaller proportion of enrollments in US. agricultural schools than in any other schools. The roots of this situation lie in the history of Euro-American agriculture, which became more male dominated as industrialization and mechanization progressed. The consequences of it are particularly unfortunate in Africa where female agricultural labor is dominant, hence the joke told at women and development conferences about agricultural training in Africa, which involves "men who have never farmed teaching men who will never farm how to farm." Some in Kenya are trying to train more female extension officers, but it is a tough battle and old colonialist-imposed stereotypes combine with indigenous and imported male dominance to defeat many efforts.
182. Some aid agencies, whose efforts have been well-meaning, have nonetheless through carelessness imported diseases that have had a destructive impact on key East African crops such as cassava and maize. Jones, Marketing, 53; D. F. Bryceson, Food Insecurity and the Social Division of Labour in Tanzania, 1919-85 (New York: St. Martin's, 1990), 22; Leakey, interviews by author, 15, 21 October 1992.
183. Some aid agencies, whose efforts have been well-meaning, have nonetheless through carelessness imported diseases that have had a destructive impact on key East African crops such as cassava and maize. Jones, Marketing, 53; D. F. Bryceson, Food Insecurity and the Social Division of Labour in Tanzania, 1919-85 (New York: St. Martin's, 1990), 22; Leakey, interviews by author, 15, 21 October 1992.
184. Some aid agencies, whose efforts have been well-meaning, have nonetheless through carelessness imported diseases that have had a destructive impact on key East African crops such as cassava and maize. Jones, Marketing, 53; D. F. Bryceson, Food Insecurity and the Social Division of Labour in Tanzania, 1919-85 (New York: St. Martin's, 1990), 22; Leakey, interviews by author, 15, 21 October 1992.
185. References calling the cost of production of beans nothing were routine in the files; when women's labor was accounted for it was minimized. For example, the Central Province Agriculture AR for 1943: 22, stated, "in less advanced areas the women always ensure the planting of a sufficiency food crops."