Farmers’ vulnerability to climate variability and extreme climate events in different agro-ecological zones in Kitui county, Kenya

Abstract

Vulnerability assessment studies are important in informing the planning of adaptation programmes and strategies, their implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation to assess their effectiveness in increasing farmers’ resilience variability and extreme weather events. The present study sought to analyze trends in rainfall and temperature, assess the vulnerability of farmers to climate variability and extreme climate events at the household level as well as coping and adaptation practices adopted by farmers from four different agro-ecological zones, namely; semi-humid, transitional, semi-arid and arid zones in Kitui County. Descriptive research design was used in the study. The sample size comprised of 341 farming households in the four agro-ecological zones which were selected using systematic random sampling method. Mann-Kendall trend analysis results for annual

average rainfall in the study area for a period of 30 years (1988-2018) indicated a non- significant negative trend for the average annual rainfall in all the four agro-ecological

zones. The results however showed a significant positive trend in average maximum and minimum temperature in all the four agro-ecological zones. Vulnerability results indicated that the arid zone had the highest vulnerability index (17.29) followed by the transitional (1.63) and semi-arid (1.49) zones while the semi-humid zone had the least (-2.65). Additionally, results from one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) indicated a statistically significant difference in the vulnerability index and its components’ indices across the four agro-ecological zones. Multinomial logistic regression results showed that different socio-economic characteristics and agro-ecological zones had varying influence of households’ vulnerability levels. Regarding the adoption of coping strategies, the results indicated that using off-farm income, selling livestock to buy food, reducing the number of meals taken in a day, selling family assets and seeking off-farm employment in urban areas were the most common coping strategies adopted by households in response to food shortage in the study area. With reference to adaptation strategies, a statistically significant difference in the adoption of mixed farming systems, improved crop varieties, use of fertilizers, irrigation, utilization of manure, agroforestry practice and planting shade trees across the different agro-ecological zones was reported. The study established that the four agro-ecological zones had varying vulnerability indices, adoption of different coping and adaptation strategies was significantly different across the agro-ecological zones and that households’ socio-economic characteristics had a varying influence on the farmers’ choice of specific coping strategies to food insecurity coping and adaptation strategies to climate variability. The present study thus recommends that projects, programmes and policies initiated by the national and county governments and other non-governmental development agencies aimed at reducing households’ vulnerability to climatic variability and occurrence of extreme climate events by increasing their resilience should be informed by households’ vulnerability levels in different agro-ecological zones and target specific households’ socio-economic characteristics that influence the adoption of the specific adaptation options.