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| Title: | The elusive granary: herder, farmer, and state in northern Kenya |
| Author: | Little, Peter D. |
| Year: | 1992 |
| Issue: | 73 |
| Pages: | 212 |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | African studies series (ISSN 0065-406X) |
| City of publisher: | Cambridge; New York |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| ISBN: | 0521405521 |
| Geographic term: | Kenya |
| Subjects: | Njemps agropastoralism food shortage |
| Abstract: | This book examines the social and political dimensions of Africa's current food and environmental crises. It focuses on the changes and the problems faced during this century by one particular ethnic group, the Il Chamus (Njemps) of Baringo District, northern Kenya, and traces the area's transformation from a food-surplus 'granary' in the late 19th century to one that is currently dependent on food imports and aid. By documenting the history, social structure, and ecology of the area, the author shows that the crisis among the region's herders is rooted in processes that preceded the devastating droughts of the 1980s. Drought is in fact a 'normal' state of affairs in semiarid Kenya, but the processes that have inhibited herders from adequately coping with it are not. These trends include growth in absentee herd ownership, which competes for local pastures; engagement in wage labour, which constrains local labour supplies; and a form of sedentary pastoralism that overuses certain range areas while underusing others. The author analyses the relationships between social, political, and ecological variables, and he treats topics such as land management, food production, marketing, State policymaking, and labour organization. The concluding discussion on the contradictions of development shows how little government and foreign donor programmes have done to alleviate poverty and underdevelopment in the area. |
