Agricultural change at the margins: adaptation and intensification in a Kenyan dryland

Abstract

ABSTRACTLand-use and livelihood patterns among Eastern African pastoralists have undergone dramatic change in recent decades. The dynamics in East Pokot effectively illustrate these changes. We focus on the spread and intensification of honey production and crop cultivation, describing the patterns of adaptation and diffusion and the current techniques of production. These processes must be understood as dynamics of agricultural intensification, and not as forms of diversification, because current transformations in pastoral communities go beyond temporal strategies of risk avoidance. In the case of East Pokot, intensification is related to population growth, albeit not in the linear manner proposed by Boserup. Rather, this relation is mediated by variables that include markets, labour, technology and the micro-conditions of the agro-ecological environment.