Koguta and Western Kenya

Koguta East Sub-location is in Kisumu District, Nyanza Province, about 150 miles north-west of Nairobi. Much of the food in the rural markets of Kisumu and Siaya Districts comes from outside. Sondu market, four miles from Koguta, is a nodal point for the import of food into Nyakach from Kericho and Kisii Districts. Until the 1930s, the colonial economy of Kenya was dominated by the acute problems of labour supply facing the Government and the European farming sector. In Kowe, in the north of what is Kisumu District, ‘considerable numbers of men voluntarily sought employment outside their home areas from the earliest days of British administration’. Some migrants were the first members of new elite of mission-educated young men who left to find work as clerks and teachers. Some found work in the Nyanza Sugar Belt or on the tea plantations in Kericho District, but most went further afield. The major centres of employment were outside the region.