[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/natres/v41y2017i4p195-208.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Adapting to climate variability and change in rural Kenya: farmer perceptions, strategies and climate trends

Author

Listed:
  • Justus Ochieng
  • Lilian Kirimi
  • Joyce Makau
Abstract
Climate change has had a significant impact on rain‐fed agricultural production in developing countries. Smallholder farmers are the most vulnerable, and currently must make production decisions in a high risk and uncertain environment with regard to rainfall and temperature. This paper uses climate and household survey data to analyse farmer perceptions regarding climate change, adaptation measures taken in response to these changes, and how well these perceptions correlate with meteorological data in Kenya. We find that a significant number of farmers perceive climate change as real, and that they are particularly concerned about changes in rainfall and temperature. Changing crop varieties is predominantly used as an adaptation measure since extension messages often encourage adoption of drought‐resistant varieties. Major factors influencing farmer perceptions include age of the farmer, which is often associated with more farming experience and subsequent extension service. Except in low potential zones, farmers' perceptions of climatic variability are in line with climatic data records. Better education, access to extension messages, farm size and credit facilities are necessary for farmers to decide to adapt to climate change. The paper further assesses barriers to the adoption of various adaptation strategies, and lack of finances and knowledge have been found to inhibit adaptation response within the smallholder farming sector. Findings imply that effective adaptation to threats posed by climate variability and change requires a multi‐dimensional collaborative approach, with different stakeholders playing key roles in providing support services in terms of education, extension, credit and meteorological information.

Suggested Citation

  • Justus Ochieng & Lilian Kirimi & Joyce Makau, 2017. "Adapting to climate variability and change in rural Kenya: farmer perceptions, strategies and climate trends," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(4), pages 195-208, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:natres:v:41:y:2017:i:4:p:195-208
    DOI: 10.1111/1477-8947.12111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-8947.12111
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1477-8947.12111?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ochieng, Justus & Kirimi, Lilian & Mathenge, Mary, 2016. "Effects of Climate Variability and Change on Agricultural Production: The Case of Small-Scale Farmers in Kenya," Working Papers 229711, Egerton University, Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development.
    2. Oecd, 2009. "Climate Change and Africa," OECD Journal: General Papers, OECD Publishing, vol. 2009(1), pages 5-35.
    3. Lorenzo Cappellari & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2003. "Multivariate probit regression using simulated maximum likelihood," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 3(3), pages 278-294, September.
    4. McFadden, Daniel & Ruud, Paul A, 1994. "Estimation by Simulation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(4), pages 591-608, November.
    5. Salvatore Di Falco & Mahmud Yesuf & Gunnar Kohlin & Claudia Ringler, 2012. "Estimating the Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture in Low-Income Countries: Household Level Evidence from the Nile Basin, Ethiopia," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 52(4), pages 457-478, August.
    6. Ernst R. Berndt & Bronwyn H. Hall & Robert E. Hall & Jerry A. Hausman, 1974. "Estimation and Inference in Nonlinear Structural Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 3, number 4, pages 653-665, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Christopher Bryant & Barry Smit & Michael Brklacich & Thomas Johnston & John Smithers & Quentin Chjotti & Bhawan Singh, 2000. "Adaptation in Canadian Agriculture to Climatic Variability and Change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 181-201, April.
    8. Kabubo-Mariara, Jane & Karanja, Fredrick K, 2007. "The economic impact of climate change on Kenyan crop agriculture : a ricardian approach," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4334, The World Bank.
    9. Hassan, Rashid M. & Nhemachena, Charles, 2008. "Determinants of African farmers’ strategies for adapting to climate change: Multinomial choice analysis," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 2(1), pages 1-22, March.
    10. Kamara, Abdul B., 2004. "The impact of market access on input use and agricultural productivity: Evidence from Machakos District, Kenya," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 43(2), pages 1-15, June.
    11. Roncoli, Carla & Okoba, Barrack & Gathaara, Violet & Ngugi, Jane & Nganga, Teresiah, 2010. "Adaptation to climate change for smallholder agriculture in Kenya: Community-based perspectives from five districts," Project notes 2, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sandra Ricart & Jorge Olcina & Antonio M. Rico, 2018. "Evaluating Public Attitudes and Farmers’ Beliefs towards Climate Change Adaptation: Awareness, Perception, and Populism at European Level," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-24, December.
    2. Justus Ochieng & Lilian Kirimi & Dennis O. Ochieng & Timothy Njagi & Mary Mathenge & Raphael Gitau & Miltone Ayieko, 2020. "Managing climate risk through crop diversification in rural Kenya," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 1107-1125, October.
    3. Mashi, Sani Abubakar & Inkani, Amina Ibrahim & Oghenejabor, Obaro Dominic, 2022. "Determinants of awareness levels of climate smart agricultural technologies and practices of urban farmers in Kuje, Abuja, Nigeria," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    4. Thi Tam Duong & Tom Brewer & Jo Luck & Kerstin Zander, 2019. "A Global Review of Farmers’ Perceptions of Agricultural Risks and Risk Management Strategies," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, January.
    5. Abdul Malik Iddrisu & Alhassan Abdul-Wakeel Karakara & Evans S. Osabuohien, 2022. "Agricultural risks, the COVID-19 pandemic, and farm household welfare and diversification strategies in Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-117, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jane Kabubo-Mariara & Richard Mulwa, 2019. "Adaptation to climate change and climate variability and its implications for household food security in Kenya," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(6), pages 1289-1304, December.
    2. Alam, Khorshed, 2015. "Farmers’ adaptation to water scarcity in drought-prone environments: A case study of Rajshahi District, Bangladesh," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 196-206.
    3. Byela Tibesigwa & Martine Visser & Jane Turpie, 2017. "Climate change and South Africa’s commercial farms: an assessment of impacts on specialised horticulture, crop, livestock and mixed farming systems," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 607-636, April.
    4. Yves Yao Soglo & Gbêtondji Melaine Armel Nonvide, 2019. "Climate change perceptions and responsive strategies in Benin: the case of maize farmers," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 155(2), pages 245-256, July.
    5. Mudombi, Grace, 2011. "Factors Affecting Perceptions and Responsiveness to Climate Variability Induced Hazards," Research Theses 198517, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    6. Justus Ochieng & Lilian Kirimi & Dennis O. Ochieng & Timothy Njagi & Mary Mathenge & Raphael Gitau & Miltone Ayieko, 2020. "Managing climate risk through crop diversification in rural Kenya," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 1107-1125, October.
    7. Muhammad Ashraf & Jayant Routray & Muhammad Saeed, 2014. "Determinants of farmers’ choice of coping and adaptation measures to the drought hazard in northwest Balochistan, Pakistan," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 73(3), pages 1451-1473, September.
    8. Benjamin Kipkemboi Kogo & Lalit Kumar & Richard Koech, 2021. "Climate change and variability in Kenya: a review of impacts on agriculture and food security," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 23-43, January.
    9. Architesh Panda, 2016. "Exploring climate change perceptions, rainfall trends and perceived barriers to adaptation in a drought affected region in India," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 84(2), pages 777-796, November.
    10. Maeregu Asrat & Barana Babiso, 2020. "Smallholder Farmers Adaptation to Climate Change and Determinants of their Adaptation Choices in Hobicha, Southern Ethiopia," Agricultural Research & Technology: Open Access Journal, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 25(1), pages 28-36, September.
    11. Fatimata Bintou Diarra & Mathieu Ouédraogo & Robert B. Zougmoré & Samuel Tetteh Partey & Prosper Houessionon & Amos Mensah, 2021. "Are perception and adaptation to climate variability and change of cowpea growers in Mali gender differentiated?," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(9), pages 13854-13870, September.
    12. Hoa Dang & Elton Li & Ian Nuberg & Johan Bruwer, 2014. "Farmers’ assessments of private adaptive measures to climate change and influential factors: a study in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 71(1), pages 385-401, March.
    13. Ngo, Quang Thanh, 2016. "Farmers’ adaptive measures to climate change induced natural shocks through past climate experiences in the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam," MPRA Paper 78055, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Mudombi, Grace, 2011. "Factors affecting perceptions and responsiveness to climate variability induced hazards," Research Theses 157508, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    15. Thennakoon, Jayanthi & Findlay, Christopher & Huang, Jikun & Wang, Jinxia, 2020. "Management adaptation to flood in Guangdong Province in China: Do property rights Matter?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    16. Giuseppe Maggio & Marina Mastrorillo & Nicholas J. Sitko, 2022. "Adapting to High Temperatures: Effect of Farm Practices and Their Adoption Duration on Total Value of Crop Production in Uganda," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(1), pages 385-403, January.
    17. Samuel Asante Gyamerah & Philip Ngare & Dennis Ikpe, 2018. "Regime-Switching Temperature Dynamics Model for Weather Derivatives," International Journal of Stochastic Analysis, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-15, July.
    18. Cook, Aaron M. & Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob E. & Sesmero, Juan P., 2013. "How do African households adapt to climate change? Evidence from Malawi," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150507, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Munir Ahmed & Ghulam Mustafa & Muhammad Iqbal, 2016. "Impact of Farm Households’ Adaptations to Climate Change on Food Security: Evidence from Different Agro-ecologies of Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 55(4), pages 561-588.
    20. Di Falco, Salvatore & Sharma, Sindra, 2018. "Investing in Climate Change Adaptation: Motivations and Green Incentives in the Fiji Islands," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 394-408.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:natres:v:41:y:2017:i:4:p:195-208. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1477-8947 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.