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