Benevolent Intent? The Development Encounter in Kenya’s Horticulture Industry Catherine S. Dolan Northeastern University, USA ABSTRACT 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 neo- liberal 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 improv- ing 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 con- tingent 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, integra- tion into a global workforce, or incorporation into a universal system of social justice. Keywords: development practice; gender; horticulture; Kenya; labor Introduction Horticultural products – vegetables, fruits, and cut flowers – are now the largest category in world agricultural trade. Over the last few decades, many African countries have capitalized on this trade, profiting from the appetite of European consumers for year-round ‘luxury vegetables’. In Kenya, Britain’s oldest and largest sub-Saharan supplier, the fresh produce trade is often heralded as a development success story that has brought thousands of new employment opportunities to poor, rural women. Yet the industry has also come to exemplify the underbelly of development. In recent years, the luxury vegetable has been tarnished by images of toxic fields and exploitive working conditions, spawning new questions about the nature of this development, whose interests it serves, and to what effect. Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications www.sagepublications.com (London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi) Vol 40(6): 411–437. DOI: 10.1177/0021909605059512