Abstract
The study established that climate change is real and has negatively affected smallholder farmer families in Mutomo and as such it was prudent to introduce drought tolerant crops like cassava in order to improve food security as a climate change adaptation technology. It was evident that the elite cassava varieties from KARI were supplying the much needed carbohydrates in an affordable form. The assessment also established water scarcity is a major development-limiting factor in Mutomo that needed urgent attention. The Mutomo community had shed “Mwolyo” the hand-out mentality through adoption of appropriate technologies for this place like growing, processing, marketing, and consumption of cassava. Cassava roots were mainly marketed as fresh roots for chewing and boiling. Cassava cuttings and cakes on sale in the Mutomo market suggested that demand for cassava was rising and only need upscaling. Being dominated by agro-pastoralists, it was obvious that cassava and other crops that take more than four months before being harvested do not fit well into the system and this is an area that has to be addressed to pre-empt potential conflicts.
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Acknowledgment
The authors would like to acknowledge the Director KARI; the Director Arid lands Information Network, and the USAID Programme for providing funds, support and other facilities in making this work a success. The Director KARI is further thanked for granting permission to publish this work. We also thank Dr. A. M. Mailu and Ms. Jayne Gathii of USAID for many valuable discussions and suggestions. Finally but not last, we thank most sincerely the various collaborative partners (Ministry of Agriculture among others) for their invaluable technical contributions.
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Githunguri, C.M., Lung’ahi, E.G., Kabugu, J., Musili, R. (2015). Cassava Farming Transforming Livelihoods Among Smallholder Farmers in Mutomo a Semi-arid District in Kenya. In: Leal Filho, W., Esilaba, A., Rao, K., Sridhar, G. (eds) Adapting African Agriculture to Climate Change. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13000-2_20
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