توسعه از طریق انحراف مثبت و مفهوم آن برای سیاست گذاری اقتصادی و مدیریت عمومی در آفریقا: مورد توسعه کشاورزی کنیا ، 1930-2005

Positive internal innovation has long been a central element of African agricultural development, even if modern efforts to stimulate technical, institutional, and policy innovations in African agriculture have tended to look outwards. This paper examines the role of positive deviance in Kenyan agriculture over the last 75 years to cast doubt on the alleged authoritative sources of policy advice and mandates from the outside. Positive deviance and appreciative inquiry are suggested as organizing frameworks for identifying and amplifying the generation and uptake of internal African innovations.

“I think that one of the reasons why the African development scene has altered, I’m afraid not for the better, especially in the field of agriculture, is that so much of the multinational development projects or whatever you like to call them, are being pushed out from the centre by people who really don’t know Africa. How the hell do you expect it to work…this is one of the problems that we have in the world today, including this estimable organization at which I work, that so much of this is not brought up from the grassroots, and that is why we have all the problems. It does not respect the views of the people on the ground,” A. Storrar, former Senior Agricultural Adviser, the World Bank, 1987 (quoted in Thurston, 1987, p. 137). Positive indigenous innovation has long been a central element of African agricultural development. Indigenous knowledge literature attests to the successes of African innovators in crop breeding, pest control, natural resource management, institutional, and organizational development in both pre and postcolonial periods (Brokensha and Warren, 1980, Kuyek, 2002, Mackenzie, 1998, Ndoum, 2001, Reij and Waters-Bayer, 2001 and Warren and Titilula, 1989). Despite these successes, modern efforts to stimulate technical, institutional, organizational, and policy innovations in African agriculture have tended to look outwards, mostly driven, in the mainstream, by external forces starting with the colonial administration in the 19th century, and continuing in the postcolonial period, after a brief interlude in the early decades of independence (1960s–70s), through policy conditionality. As a recent World Bank (2006, p. 1) paper put it, African indigenous innovators are often overlooked on the basis that “the innovations and discoveries they produce are mostly incremental, meaning they do not carry high income gains.” This paper will demonstrate that this position is seriously mistaken. Despite the relegation of indigenous/internal innovation (by mainstream/externally driven approaches) to the periphery or informal sector, it shall be shown that some of the most fundamental innovations in Kenyan agriculture over the last 75 years—private property rights in land, smallholder cultivation of commercial cash crops, contract farming, significant pressures toward market-led approaches—were pioneered and pushed into the “mainstream” (from the “fringes”) by a handful of internal innovators (here referred to us “positive deviants” see definition in Section 2) in spite of prevailing official or mainstream policy. The case studies presented here suggest that the constant turn outward in search of solutions to national problems has tended to bury possibilities and to dampen national innovation. For example, although the World Bank (2006) estimates that informal agriculture in Nigeria which mostly uses indigenous methods and techniques has an estimated worth of US 12 billion, it also finds an “indifference trap” where a majority of indigenous innovators no longer share potentially efficiency and productivity enhancing innovations because public policy, laws and institutions do not recognize or create a conducive environment for the uptake of their innovations. This paper examines the role of positive deviance in Kenyan agriculture over the last 75 years to cast doubt on the alleged authoritative sources of policy advice and mandates from the outside. It shall be shown that positive national innovation does not require external ideas, aid, or “technocratic” approaches. Innovative ideas can come from a wide spectrum of stakeholders—the key challenge lies in the early recognition of such efforts by public authorities and institutions, and in building effective coalitions to mobilize for their development and uptake. Section 3 shows that positively deviant smallholders, agricultural, and administration field officers were instrumental in the formulation and implementation of the Swynnerton Plan (1954–59), making a generational impact on postcolonial Kenya’s agrarian development through fundamental institutional, organizational, technical, and policy innovations. At firm level, Section 4 credits positively deviant farmers and members of staff of the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) with the transformation of the organization from a vulnerable, top-down, and authoritarian public corporation catering for few thousand smallholders in the early 1960s into a lucrative multi-million dollar private enterprise fully owned and managed by over 300 000 smallholder farmers at the beginning of the 21st century, while Section 5 demonstrates that positive deviance among smallholders and elements within the bureaucracy played significant roles in the pursuit of potentially more efficient and equitable organizational, institutional, and policy arrangements in the sugar sub-sector throughout the Kenyatta and Moi regimes. These case studies will also show that positive deviance in Kenyan agriculture was constrained by a number of factors, most notably, policy conditionality, internal political constraints, and interest group pressures. This paper suggests positive deviance and appreciative inquiry approaches as organizing frameworks for identifying and amplifying the work of African innovators, thereby solving the problem of “indifference trap.” (a). Why Kenyan agriculture? Many African governments briefly attempted homegrown1 solutions to their development problems during the early postcolonial period before being forced by policy conditionality to cede this role to external agents/cies from the early 1980s. This came about amidst claims that governments were part of the development problem rather than its solution (Bhagwati, 1982, Datta-Chaudhuri, 1990 and Krueger, 1990). Limitations of “before and after” evaluations of the impact of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) notwithstanding (Sahn, 1996), externally imposed solutions have in many cases fared no better than preceding homegrown ones (Cornia et al., 1987, Ghai, 1991 and Kohsaka, 2004). Paradoxically, countries like Mauritius and Botswana2 that refrained from much foreign aid and advice have emerged as two of Africa’s most successful economies and democracies (see for instance, Subramanian and Roy, 2001 and UNDP, 2003). This should not be totally surprising as some of the global economic miracles of the last century—the “East Asian Tigers” also underwent economic transformation by largely ignoring “mainstream” development policy advice (Amsden, 1989, Chang, 1993 and Rodrik, 2001). Kenya presents an interesting case for different reasons. Its economy grew much faster under homegrown institutional, organizational, and policy innovations (embedded in “African Socialism” in the 1960s and early 1970s), some of which were borrowed from, if not similar in principle, to the Swynnerton Plan (Ochieng, 2005). This is despite the fact that as far as the country was concerned, SAPs constituted, to a large extent, the amplification of many policies already pursued, if half-heartedly or disparately, across sectors of the economy (Husain and Faruqee, 1994, Mosley et al., 1991 and Swamy, 1994). Until the early 1980s, Kenya’s agricultural sector was regarded as constituting a successful “development model,” distinguished by the prominent role that smallholders played in both commercial agriculture and national economic policy making (Bates, 1981, Bates, 1989, Lele, 1989, Lofchie, 1989 and Orvis, 1997). The country’s overall economic growth averaged 6.4% per annum from 1965 to 1980 (Orvis, 1997, p. 6).3 The annual average increase in agricultural production was 6.2% from 1965 to 1973 and 3.5% from 1973 to 1984, compared to 2.6% (1965–73) and 1.4% (1973–84) for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole (Bates, 1989 and Holmquist, 2001). Against a background of changing domestic and international political and economic conditions, coupled with SAPs, the country’s economy and agricultural sector went into a period of general decline from the early 1980s onwards. The annual average rate of agricultural growth slowed to 1.1% in the period 1990–2000, while economic growth declined steadily throughout the 1980s to reach a low rate of 1.9% in the period 1990–2001 (Republic of Kenya, Economic Survey, various). The good performance in the 1960s and early 1970s can of course be attributed to a number of factors including more favorable initial conditions (Heyer, Maitha, & Senga, 1976). (A detailed examination of Kenya’s (early) “exceptionalism” is beyond the scope of this paper.) This paper traces and evaluates the impact of positive deviance in Kenya’s agriculture to show that conditionality was neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for innovations in Kenyan agriculture; internal innovation can be as high yielding or even a more fruitful source of innovation than that induced through conditionality. (b). Choice of the case studies: the KTDA and Mumias Sugar Company (MSC) Kenya has one of the most extensive contract farming schemes in sub-Saharan Africa covering over a million farming households involved in the contract production of such diverse crops as tea, sugar, coffee, tobacco, flowers, fruits, and vegetables (Glover and Kusterer, 1990, HCDA, 2002, Jaffee, 1994, KSB, 2002, KTDA, 2002, Republic of Kenya, Economic Survey, 2004 and Watts and Little, 1994). Coffee, tea, and sugar constitute the biggest contract schemes, involving nearly 600 000, 360 000, and 100 000 smallholders, respectively (Republic of Kenya, Economic Survey, 2004). Overall, smallholders (with a national average farm size under 2.5 ha) remain the largest producers of key agricultural commodities in Kenya, accounting for 70% of total marketed agricultural production and close to 75% of the total area under the two (long time) leading export crops, tea, and coffee (horticulture having overtaken coffee as the second largest foreign exchange earning cash crop in the late 1990s, Republic of Kenya, Economic Survey, 2004). If agriculture has been integral to the Kenyan developmental model, contract farming has been at the heart of Kenyan agriculture, facilitating smallholder participation in the commercial production of high-value cash crops. The KTDA and the Mumias Sugar Company (henceforth, Mumias or MSC) schemes were selected because the tea and sugar sub-sectors have striking similarities and contrasts in terms of modes of production, marketing, socio-political and technical characteristics, policy conditionality, internal political dynamics, and shifting historical fortunes of the crops, growers, agribusiness, and the state. Tea is Kenya’s largest foreign exchange earner, accounting for over 20% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings (Republic of Kenya, Economic Survey, 2004). The KTDA, with 360 000 smallholder farmers distributed across five provinces, accounted for 60% of all tea produced in Kenya, and provided direct and indirect employment to some 2 million people in 2001 (TBK, 2002). Plantation or estate tea companies and the Nyayo Tea Zone Development Authority, accounted for the remaining 40%. The country is the second largest tea exporter in the world, accounting for 18% of global tea exports (TBK, 2002). In contrast, Kenya is a sugar-deficit country, importing a third of its annual sugar consumption (Republic of Kenya, Economic Survey, 2004), the commodity having long been one of the largest items, by value, of Kenya’s imports (Central Bureau of Statistics, various). Sugarcane is mainly grown in the Western and Nyanza provinces of Kenya, where it was the main source of livelihood for over 100 000 smallholder farmers, directly employed 35 000 people and indirectly supported another 3 million in 2001 (KSB, 2002). It also played a major import-substitution role, and generated substantial revenues to the exchequer, accounting for 28% of the government’s excise revenue in 2000 (KSB, 2002). Sugar was the fourth largest contributor to the agricultural GDP after tea, horticulture, and coffee, in that order, in 2001 (Republic of Kenya, Economic Survey, 2002). Prior to independence in 1963, both tea and sugar were grown as plantation crops, with little or no African participation (there was little European participation in the sugar industry either before or after colonialism, with its preindependence production largely in the hands of Kenya Asians). The postcolonial government sought to address this situation by creating state companies to oversee the production and marketing of these commodities, and by placing emphasis on the participation of smallholders through contract farming. The KTDA was founded under the Agriculture Act (Cap.118) in 1964 to promote the development of smallholder tea, while the Kenya Sugar Authority (KSA) was founded under the same Act in 1973 to act as an advisory body to the government on the development of a smallholder-based sugar industry. Mumias was founded in 1973, as the first smallholder sugar contract farming scheme in Kenya. It is now the largest sugar producer in Kenya, producing 200 000 tonnes of sugar annually and accounting for 50% of all sugar produced in Kenya (KSA, 2001). It has a production contract with 65 000 smallholders. Initially, both the KTDA and Mumias were government parastatals with multi-partite arrangements involving either the World Bank and/or the CDC (Commonwealth Development Corporation) among other partners. Both have since been privatized (KTDA in 2000; Mumias in 2002) with the KTDA being wholly farmer owned and managed and Mumias retaining significant government shareholding and management control. Although both the KTDA and the KSA were established under the same legislation and have more or less similar histories, the rules governing management, production and trade as well as policy, technical, organizational, and institutional innovations in the two schemes have been markedly different. Tea is produced primarily for export while sugar is produced primarily for the domestic market. The market determined tea prices from the outset of the smallholder scheme, whereas until the mid-1990s the state set both producer and consumer prices for sugar. As will be shown in the following sections, smallholders in the tea sub-sector have often played instrumental roles in innovations within the KTDA, whereas innovative activities by smallholders in the sugar sub-sector have been severely restricted (for detailed contrasts, see, Lamb and Mueller, 1982, Leonard, 1991, Ministry of Agriculture, 1982, Ministry of Agriculture, 2003, Ochieng, 2005, Odada, 1987, Steeves, 1975 and Watts and Little, 1994). Finally, the two schemes are located in different geographical/political locations of Kenya. Tea is grown in 28 districts in five provinces across the country, including in Central and Rift Valley provinces which have thus far produced Kenya’s presidents. Sugar, on the other hand is grown in Western and Nyanza (and formerly Coast) provinces which have constituted the bedrock of opposition politics in Kenya. Both tea and sugar are considered “political” crops in Kenya, tea for nationalist reasons (the earlier colonial prohibition) and its contribution to the GDP and foreign exchange earnings, sugar due to its popularity with the masses (for consumption). Despite these similarities and differences, the following discussions will show that positive deviance was present in both tea and sugar schemes. However, the propensity for its uptake or lack thereof was dependent on a complex mix of factors, which included: historical circumstances (colonialism), a national political system characterized by patron–client politics based on an ideology of ethnic competition, interest group pressures (agribusiness bias), and policy conditionality.

The development processes documented in this paper suggest that it is time to rethink the development through aid and policy conditionality paradigm that has dominated international economic policy making with regard to Africa over the last quarter century. These case studies show that positive national innovation or good policy does not require external ideas or aid. Innovative ideas can come from a wide spectrum of stakeholders—the key challenge lies in the early recognition of such efforts by public authorities and institutions, and in building effective coalitions to mobilize for their development and uptake. This is where conditionality might come in handy—in reinforcing internal positive innovation rather than trying to supplant or impede it through outside alternatives. This paper has shown that there are real internal constraints to internal positive innovation. These include: (1) patron–client politics based on an ideology of ethnic competition, and (2) resistance from interests groups that might be negatively affected, in the short term, by such innovations. Policy conditionality might be used to help overcome such internal constraints, but such use of conditionality implies that it should be employed as a secondary or last resort measure, rather than as the national “default” position for development. The constant turn outwards in search of solutions to national problems can sometimes act as an impediment to national innovation, as was the case in the early years of the KTDA. Considerable literature on policy conditionality (Cornia et al., 1987, Ghai, 1991 and Kohsaka, 2004) in developing countries indicates that external change agents have limited if any impact in stimulating and successfully managing innovations and policy reforms. This paper has shown that key institutional, organizational, and policy innovations and reforms in Kenya agriculture over the last 75 years have occurred as a result of positive deviance and not “mainstream” approaches or policy conditionality. Contrary to conventional opinion, this study has shown that there is little reason to overlook African indigenous innovators on the basis that their innovations and discoveries do not yield high income gains. Positive deviance and appreciative inquiry approaches have been suggested as organizing frameworks for identifying and amplifying the work of African indigenous/internal innovators. It has been argued that they present one way of solving the “indifference trap” among African internal/indigenous innovators and of accelerating the generation and uptake of social, institutional, organizational, and policy innovations for a rapid economic development in Africa.