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Adaptation to climate change and climate variability and its implications for household food security in Kenya

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Abstract

Climate change and climate variability affect weather patterns and cause shifts in seasons with serious repercussions such as declining food production and productivity for communities and households in Kenya. To mitigate the negative impacts of climate change and variability, farming households have been encouraged to adopt different strategies such as new crop varieties, crop and livestock diversification, and water-harvesting technologies. These adaptation strategies are expected to boost both the amount of food produced and food security of an adapting household; which in this case is defined one that has taken up one or more of the twenty-five climate change and climate variability adaptation techniques identified during the study. Using maize yield equivalent (MYE), which expresses farm production in equivalent kgs of maize grain, as a measure of total crop production and food security, this study assessed the factors influencing adaptation to climate change and climate variability, and the implications of adaptation for food security. To accomplish these objectives, an endogenous switching regression model was applied to household survey data of 658 households from 38 counties in Kenya. The results demonstrated that increases in mean air temperature and precipitation influenced levels of food production either negatively or positively depending on whether they occur at harvest, land preparation or during crop growing periods. The type of soil also influenced productivity as households living in areas with different soil types produce varying quantities of MYE in kgs/ha of land. Household characteristics and ownership of farm assets also influenced adaptation. By comparing production of adapting and non-adapting households, we demonstrated that households adapting to climate change and climate variability through uptake of technologies such as early planting, use of improved crop varieties, and crop diversification produced 4877 kgs of MYE/ha per year against 3238 kgs of MYE/ha per year for households that did not adapt (a 33.6% difference between the two groups). Given the nature of for smallscale households who produce mainly for household consumption, high crop yields translate to increased food security. We can therefore conclude that successful adaptation to climate change and climate variability significantly increases food security in Kenya.

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Notes

  1. Data with finer resolutions were available, but there was a problem with the time span. For instance, daily precipitation satellite data was retrieved from the Climate Prediction Centre (CPC) of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with a resolution of 0.1 deg. by 0.1 deg. (about 10 km), while precipitation was obtained from the UK Met Office with a resolution of 50 km by 50 km. A collection of daily parameters from the ECMWF model can be found at: http://dataportal.ecmwf.int/data/d/interim_daily/.

  2. Autonomous adaptation refers to adaptation that does not constitute a conscious response to climatic stimuli, but is triggered by ecological changes in natural systems and by market or welfare changes in human systems. Planned adaptation refers to adaptation which results from a deliberative policy decision, based on awareness that conditions have changed or are about to change and that action is required to return to, to maintain, or to achieve a desired state (IPCC 2001).

  3. MYE/ha as presented here is in kgs is the amount produced per ha a year (two seasons). Half of the amount presented is what farmers harvest in a season.

  4. A risk averse farmer does not like risk, and therefore will stay away from adding high-risk climate change adaptation strategies or taking up new technologies.

  5. General extension refers to the advice given to farmers on general farm agronomic practices without any specific emphasis on climate change.

  6. .

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Acknowledgements

A part of this material was published in EfD discussion paper No. 17-05 of 2017 by the same authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP) and School of Economics, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

    Jane Kabubo-Mariara

  2. Center for Advanced Studies in Environmental Law and Policy (CASELAP) and School of Economics, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

    Richard Mulwa

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  1. Jane Kabubo-Mariara
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  2. Richard Mulwa
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Correspondence to Richard Mulwa.

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Kabubo-Mariara, J., Mulwa, R. Adaptation to climate change and climate variability and its implications for household food security in Kenya. Food Sec. 11, 1289–1304 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-019-00965-4

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