Diversification of Household Livelihood Strategies for Tobacco Small-holder Farmers: A Case Study of Introducing Bamboo in South Nyanza Region, Kenya

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.