Farming money in Nakuru County: small farmers and the meaning of the market in the western part of Kenya

What is the market for small farmers in Kenya? What does farming mean for them? These are the key questions that move the article that investigate the process of market integration of small farming, and the strategies, meaning, and aspirations that farmers associate to their activities. Based on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Nakuru County between 2018 and 2020, the article discusses how small farmers relate with their cultivated land and the market in their everyday life, appreciating the material conditions and the hierarchy of values that inform particular choices. In that way, it points out the small farmers household economy is enmeshed within the market and shows the centrality of money and cash flow as interpretative category used by the farmers to justify their farming practices and strategies.