Farmers build climate change resilience through innovative farm practices

Bob Koigi

From intercropping, mulching to relying on indigenous knowledge, Kenyan smallholder farmers are developing resilient techniques to insulate themselves from changing weather patterns at a time when studies show they will be among the most affected in years to come.

Already failed rains and disrupted planting and harvesting seasons have taken a toll on farmers yields and ultimately affecting crop production even as population soars to unprecedented highs.
According to Greenpeace, an NGO that champions behaviour and attitude change in protection of the environment, Kenyan farmers have offered hope and determination in their resilience towards vagaries of weather. In a multimedia exhibition by Greenpeace Africa and the Institute for Culture and Ecology (ICE), ten farmers in Eastern and Western Kenya have been captured giving their resilient stories as they struggle to beat climate change.

Dubbed “The Era of Resilience- the Journey of a Kenyan Farmer, the exhibition has been pivotal in showcasing ecological farming practices that the country’s smallholder farmers have embraced while shwocasing first hand farmer experiences even as they call for support to improve livelihoods and advance their farming agenda.

The exhibition is a positive move towards advancing the ecological farming movement not only in Kenya but also for the entire African continent. Local organizations and small-scale farmers join forces to present thoughtful, modern farming methods based on age-old resilience techniques. The exhibition aims to present a future where the Kenyan Food system can be secured and become a development model for others on the continent.

The organization is also launching a report dubbed “Building environmental resilience: A snapshot of farmers adapting to climate change in Kenya”. The report sums up smallholder farmers’ low cost but innovative ways of adapting to weather vagaries.

And as farmers look for new and proactive ways to rise above the vagaries, equal participation of women and men in agriculture including ownership to land and access to credit facilities is key in assisting farmers mitigate against the effects of climate change another study has shown.

According to the research paper cited and published in Global Environment Change and whichexamines adaptation to climate change by farmers in East and West Africa, although gender on its own is not a key determinant in matters mitigation, ensuring that resilience is equally enhanced for both men and women farmers would go along way in boosting mitigation. Global food security according to the research paper may not be achieved in the wake of the ever increasing reality of climate change if investment is not done to the millions of smallholder women farmers.

In 2018, Ferdinand Wangila Makhanu from Bungoma County, western Kenya, was an average smallholder struggling to support his family with meagre harvests from his 2-acre farm. However, his fortunes began to change in 2010 when he was invited to a neighbour’s farm where the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) was demonstrating techniques to sustainably intensify the production of crops.

Out of curiosity, he began to copy what he had seen. “The personal challenges I faced meant I could not be suspicious the initiative,” says the father of eight. When using traditional practices, the most Ferdinand had been able to harvest was six 90 kg bags of produce from 1 acre of land. However, after adopting the sustainable intensification techniques, such as spraying herbicide to prepare his land as opposed plowing, digging holes only where seeds were to be planted to reduce soil erosion, and retaining crop residue on his fields to increase soil nutrients, Ferdinand doubled his yields. Years later, he now achieves on average his farm produces bountiful harvests and he predicts his yields will continue to increase as the organic matter of his soil improves due to retaining crop residue.

Ferdinand has also been able to decrease his on-farm production costs. From spending up to Ksh4,500 per acre to plow his land, he now spends just Sh1000 per acre on herbicides to remove the weeds. “My wife used to struggle when digging to get rid of couch grass, but one round of spraying is enough to get rid of all the weeds, and it takes little time,” Ferdinand explains. He estimates that the new techniques have also reduced his labor costs by 60% since he no longer has to hire farm hands.

Prior to discovering the new way of farming, Ferdinand used to burn his crop residue or feed it to his livestock, however, maintaining the residue on his land has enabled him to have an extra produce harvest each year because his soil is healthier.

Ferdinand has also been able to diversify his production thanks to his healthier soil and now grows more nutritive legume crops in addition to maize, like pigeon pea, lablab, velvet bean, soybean and cowpea.

The heightened attention on mitigation and resilience especially among smallholder farmers in Kenya and East Africa has come at a time when numerous studies have shown that the areas are among those that will experience the greatest impact of weather vagaries by 2050. Already phenomena unprecedented in the country are now being experienced.

For example Western Kenya one of the areas traditionally known as the country’s breadbasket has turned into a basket case as rains fail. Frost experienced in tea growing zones in the country like Nyeri affected output and ultimately exports ruining smallholder incomes. Pests that would traditionally not have affected certain crops now do.

According to scientists key crops relied by majority of farmers in Kenya and Africa will be the most affected by climate change affecting overall production by the year 2050. For example scientists predict that maize production will drop by 22 per cent, cassava by 8 per cent and groundnut by 18 per cent.