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Climate Variability and Change: Farmer Perceptions and Understanding of Intra-Seasonal Variability in Rainfall and Associated Risk in Semi-Arid Kenya

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/45/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0014479710000918
 
Title Climate Variability and Change: Farmer
Perceptions and Understanding of
Intra-Seasonal Variability in Rainfall and
Associated Risk in Semi-Arid Kenya
 
Creator Rao, K P C
Ndegwa, W G
Kizito, K
Oyoo, A
 
Subject Climate change
 
Description This study examines farmers’ perceptions of short- and long-term variability in climate, their ability to
discern trends in climate and how the perceived trends converge with actual weather observations in five
districts of Eastern Province in Kenya where the climate is semi-arid with high intra- and inter-annual
variability in rainfall. Field surveys to elicit farmers’ perceptions about climate variability and change
were conducted in Machakos, Makueni, Kitui, Mwingi and Mutomo districts. Long-term rainfall records
from five meteorological stations within a 10 km radius from the survey locations were obtained from the
Kenya Meteorological Department and were analysed to compare with farmers’ observations. Farmers’
responses indicate that they are well aware of the general climate in their location, its variability, the
probabilistic nature of the variability and the impacts of this variability on crop production. However,
their ability to synthesize the knowledge they have gained from their observations and discern longterm
trends in the probabilistic distribution of seasonal conditions is more subjective, mainly due to the
compounding interactions between climate and other factors such as soil fertility, soil water and land use
change that determine the climate’s overall influence on crop productivity. There is a general tendency
among the farmers to give greater weight to negative impacts leading to higher risk perception. In relation
to long-term changes in the climate, farmer observations in our study that rainfall patterns are changing
corroborated well with reported perceptions from other places across the African continent but were not
supported by the observed trends in rainfall data from the five study locations. The main implication of
our findings is the need to be aware of and account for the risk during the development and promotion of
technologies involving significant investments by smallholder farmers and exercise caution in interpreting
farmers’ perceptions about long-term climate variability and change.
 
Publisher Cambridge University Press
 
Date 2011
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/45/1/kpcrao2011.pdf
Rao, K P C and Ndegwa, W G and Kizito, K and Oyoo, A (2011) Climate Variability and Change: Farmer Perceptions and Understanding of Intra-Seasonal Variability in Rainfall and Associated Risk in Semi-Arid Kenya. Experimental Agriculture, 47 (2). pp. 267-291.