Kenya has a fairly developed cooperative movement, the backbone of which is agricultural marketing cooperatives. Studies of the cooperative movement in Kenya, however, are still exceptional, particularly studies which highlight the impact of marketing cooperatives on the socio-economic relations of the peasantry and vice versa.
Some have seen the marketing cooperatives in Kenya as instruments in the hands of a rural elite, which is linked firmly to the political elite and the bureaucrats. Others have emphasized their parastatal character. Very few have ended up with positive conclusions saying that they are instruments in the hands of the peasantry, which further the interests of the peasantry.
This study also reveals numerous shortcomings of the marketing cooperatives, based on an in-depth study of a selected peasant society. They still suffer from organizational rigidity, low educational standards, and indifference on the part of most peasants. But on the other hand the development trend during the last decade has been positive, and the marketing cooperatives have not led to increasing social differentiation in the selected study area. On the contrary the marketing cooperatives rather seem to have preserved the existing egalitarian social structure, and reversely the egalitarian social structure seems to provide a fruitful basis for the development of marketing cooperatives.