Impact Of Agro-Forestry Practices On Resilience To Climate Variability Among Farmers In Vihiga Sub-County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Climate variability which is a reality in Kenya is manifested by fluctuations in climatic

parameters, low agricultural production, land fragmentation, soil degradation, and loss of

biodiversity. Addressing climate variability requires the use of ecologically based

traditional climate smart agriculture systems such as agro forestry. In the past decade

human lives, crops and livestock worth millions of shillings have been destroyed by

increased intensity of extreme weather events in Kenya. This study therefore intended to

examine the impact of agro forestry practices as a resilient mechanism for farmers

against the effects of climate variability in Vihiga Sub County, Kenya. The specific

objectives were to: (i) determine the agro forestry techniques practiced by farmers in

Vihiga Sub County; (ii) examine the rainfall and temperature variability trends in Vihiga

Sub County from 1985 to 2015 and (iii) evaluate the contribution of agro forestry

practices and products to households’ income as farmers’ resilience to Climate

Variability in Vihiga Sub County. Evaluation research design was used in this study. The

sample size involved 418 respondents. Stratified random sampling was used to get

farmer households by using the five locations in the sub county as strata. All the strata

had a target population of about 4184. Purposive sampling was used to sample relevant

organizations which included: ministry of agriculture, Kenya Agricultural and Livestock

Research Organization, International center for research and agro forestry, Kenya

meteorological department, Kenya sugar research foundation and District Agricultural

office staff. Quota sampling was used to identify respondents for focus group

discussions; the study used interview schedules to collect data from officers attached to

these organizations. Secondary data was collected from documentary analysis obtained

from these offices. Information on different trends in temperature, rainfall, agricultural

outputs and potential yields was obtained from these organizations. Data collected was

subjected to Analysis of Variance using Statistical Analysis Systems software version

8.0 to determine if agro forestry practices had significant effects on climate variability

and correlation-regression analyses were done to establish relationship(s) between key

variables on climate variability and agro-forestry practices. The results revealed that

multiple agro forestry practices have been adopted in the study area, they include mixing

trees with agricultural crops (7.7%), fruit trees with agricultural crops (6.7%), trees and

agricultural crops with animals (20.6%) and agricultural crops with pasture (44.8%) and

other agro forestry practices (20.2%) respectively. The chi square test at 0.01 gave a pvalue

of (0.006) indicating that there was statistically no significant difference between

agro forestry techniques and climate variability. Agro forestry has contributed to the

moderate climatic conditions experienced in the sub county while the increase in

temperature is attributed to global warming. The benefits of agro forestry in Vihiga sub

county range from planting trees as windbreaks (90.7%) to diversifying agricultural

products (17.4%) respectively. These results are useful in understanding the role of agro

forestry systems in enhancing farmers’ resilience to climate variability and thereby

reducing the level of vulnerability. The results will further assist policy makers in

formulating sound policies in matters pertaining to climate variability resilience