The Tobacco Monopoly In Sirisia: Bureaucratic Enterprise And Economic Change, 1975-2005

Abstract

The study investigated the impact of tobacco on the economy and society in Sirisia, Bungoma County using the concepts of innovation, adaptation and commercialization. The study applied these concepts to explain how the tobacco scheme was built upon a repressive and sustained work regime among peasants at the expense of other agricultural pursuits.The paper holds that although peasant economy in Sirisia was self-sustaining, the introduction of commercial tobacco cultivation from 1975 completely alterd this set-up. The study was based on archival research, oral interviews as well as analysing literature on tobacco plant and its history.