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It was not so long ago that mangoes, papaya and snow peas evoked images of tropical climes and exotic peoples. Recently, however, the consumption of so-called luxury fruits and vegetables has elicited a different sort of imagery. Far from the lure of seductive landscapes, today's consumer is confronted with haunting images of toxic fields, child slavery and the African poor. Such images are part of a new morality of consumption, where consumers, NGOs, trade unions and global supermarkets aspire to 'save' the African worker from the downside of globalization. This article explores the ways in which Kenya's highly valuable vegetable trade has become the field on which notions of justice, economic rights and African development are played out. Based on archival research and consumer interviews, it focusses specifically on how the ethical turn of UK consumers (and the retailers' branding of this sensibility) is rooted in an older legacy, whereby 19th-century liberal considerations of duty, morality and progress inhabited the agenda of the late colonial state. The article suggests that, in both cases, African labor is an arena in which discourses of justice are played out, as a consuming public (re)constitute the African worker as an object of their duty and obligation.

This article examines the trajectory of development policy and practice through the case of the Kenyan export trade of fresh produce. It traces how African labor, particularly women's labor, has been harnessed and restructured by three models of development: (1) the neoliberal prescriptions for agricultural diversification and contract farming; (2) the post-Washington consensus of pro-poor growth; and (3) the Corporate Social Responsibility movement of the late 20th century. While each model offers different approaches to improving Kenyan lives, they are united by a common intent to bring African labor into the fold of modernity, as both object and instrument of development. Drawing on fieldwork conducted among smallholders and waged employees, the article advances two arguments: (1) the construction and outcome of horticulture development is founded on, and contingent upon, gendered forms of labor; and (2) the exercise of trusteeship has been central to each model as international financial agencies and non-governmental organizations steward the 'development' of the African laborer. The article contends that all models cast the Kenyan worker as someone to be developed, be it through rural development, integration into a global workforce, or incorporation into a universal system of social justice.

Abstract The fresh vegetables commodity chain linking Kenyan producers with United Kingdom (UK) consumers employs significant numbers of workers in production and processing. This chain is dominated by UK retailers that determine the production imperatives of Kenyan firms upstream in the chain and, indirectly the employment strategies they adopt. This paper explores how competitive pressures are transmitted through the supply chain, and how exporters absorb these risks by placing greater emphasis on organizational flexibility and the elasticity of labor in horticultural production. The paper argues that while the industry provides substantial employment opportunities in Kenya, the commodity chain is dependent upon the "gendered" and insecure forms of employment it creates.

This article examines the social effects of contract farming of export horticulture among smallholders in Meru District, Kenya. During the 1980s and 1990s, contracting was popularized by donors and governments alike as a way to reduce poverty and increase opportunities for self–employment in rural areas. Considerable research has documented the tensions in social relations that emerge in such cases, giving rise to gendered struggles over land, labour, and income in the face of new commodity systems. This article highlights similar tendencies. It suggests that men's failure to compensate their wives for horticulture production has given rise to a string of witchcraft allegations and acts, as the wealth engendered by horticultural commodities comes up against cultural norms of marital obligation. While witchcraft accusations can expose women to risks of social alienation and financial deprivation, witchcraft nevertheless remains a powerful weapon through which women can level intra–household disparities and, more broadly, challenge the legitimacy of social practice. In Meru, witchcraft discourses are a vehicle through which gendered struggles over contract income are articulated and contested, and through which the social costs of agrarian transition become apparent.