Abstract:
In Kenya, tobacco is grown in four provinces
, namely, Nyanza (Migori, Kuria, Suba and
Homa bay districts), Western
(Bungoma, Busia, Teso and M
ount Elgon districts), Central
(Kirinyaga, Muranga, and Thik
a districts) and Eastern
(Meru, Kitui and Machakos
districts). However, 80% of the country’s
tobacco production comes
from South Nyanza
region (mainly in Kuria, Migori and Homa
bay districts). This
research project was
carried out in the above four (4) district
s of South Nyanza regi
on. The overall goal was
the investigation of the sust
ainability of traditional an
d modern household livelihood
strategies of tobacco farmers and how they
would be diversified through the introduction
of bamboo as an alternative crop to
tobacco production in the region.
This research has attempted to go into consid
erable depth in its objectives to promote
local enforcement of the Framework Conve
ntion on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The study
has indicated that though most households e
ngage in tobacco farming to improve their
standards of living in the region, tobacco fa
rming seems to have added little or no
difference to their livelihood when compared
to non-tobacco households in the region.
Field experiments have shown that bamboo
can do well in soil, agro-climatic and
topographical conditions similar to those of tobacco and will fetch 4-5 times more in
terms of income. The market potential for
bamboo products is huge because most of
those sold in the formal retail market in Kenya are imported entirely from China, India
and Thailand. Besides numerous economic
advantages of bamboo, social and
environmental problems associated with toba
cco farming can be reduced through bamboo
production. The Basic Training on Bamboo Treat
ment, Handcraft Weaving & Furniture
Processing Technologies carried out to the fa
rmers was a major impetus to the acceptance
of bamboo in the region. This is because it
acted as an eye opene
r on the multiple and
wide market potential of bamboo at local, re
gional and international markets in the long
run.
It is recommended that research issues that
emerged from the last
three years project
activities, should be addresse
d in the next Phase of the
Project in 2009-2012. Key issues
include: surveying household livelihood strate
gies used by tobacco and non-tobacco
farmers in the other three (3) tobacco farming
clusters in Kenya as compared to the South
Nyanza region, up-scaling of the project to
other small-holder tobacco farmers,
development of a marketing structure for ba
mboo products through a cooperative system
and building local capacities
in bamboo production industry. In
brief, the shifting from
tobacco to bamboo is possible because the ma
jority of tobacco farmers are willing and
about 50% have already embraced the new industry during the first 3 years of
experiment.
