COMMUNITY BASED CLIMATE SERVICES IN SUPPORT OF IMPROVED FOOD SECURITY, LIVELIHOODS AND RESILIENT COMMUNITY

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1 COMMUNITY BASED CLIMATE SERVICES IN SUPPORT OF IMPROVED FOOD SECURITY, LIVELIHOODS AND RESILIENT COMMUNITY CASE STUDIES ON FOUR PILOT COMMUNITIES IN KENYA SUMMARY A just concluded no-regret community based climate risk reduction services project by the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) in collaboration with the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) has been running since These efforts were supported by the then Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA) Program that was jointly supported by Canada s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the United Kingdom s Department for International Development (DFID), and later in 2011 the Rockefeller Foundation came in. The overall objective was to contribute to community level climate risk reduction in agriculture and food security sector by providing community demand-driven climate information for agricultural planning and decision-making. Apart from ICPAC and KMD the project had partners from local Universities namely University of Nairobi (UoN), and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (JOOUST), Technical University of Kenya (TUK); Kenya Industrial Property Institute; National Museums of Kenya, local government sector specific experts; local administration and community groups, among others. The partners had specific roles and worked together to provide integrated seasonal community-specific climate risk reduction advisories that integrated local community knowledge and scientific forecasts. Development of community-specific climate risk reduction advisories started from Regional climate forums (RCOFs) where the down scaling of the global products from WMO Global climate producing Centres (GPCs) were undertaken to produce regional climate outlooks through partnerships of international, regional, and national partners including ICPAC, GPCs, WMO, National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs), climate experts; users among others. These regional climate outlook products were then downscaled to national and sub-national level products by NMHSs at a post RCOFs national climate dissemination forum. In the case of Kenya, KMDreleased national climate outlooks for various sectors and parts of the country at national climate dissemination seminar. The main aim of the project was to address how the poor and vulnerable communities in Kenya could take advantage of such area specific seasonal early warning products from RCOFs and KMD forums. Four pilot locations in Kenya were selected to implement this study. These locations included Oloitokitok in Maasai land where livestock livelihoods system dominate); Reru (dry area close to lake Victoria with subsistence agriculture as their key livelihood activity); Nganyi (which had been running indigenous based climate forecasts for generations) and Nyahera (peri-urban with high agro-business potential). The downscaled local seasonal climate outlooks for specific locations were tabled for discussion at location 1 P a g e

2 specific forums to derive consensus location specific agro-climate advisories with input not only from the local communities, but also experts from local Universities, Local Government advisers from various sectors; local NGOs/CBOs, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), farmer group representatives, among others. The project s key lessons and experiences from the four vulnerable communities in Kenya are being highly appreciated by the communities. A post season evaluation forum also formed an important component of this project during which project results for a specific season are evaluated (Figs 6 & 7). Community-specific Project Interventions and Outcomes Oloitokitok Community This community is predominantly inhabited by nomadic pastoralists living in the arid and semiarid part of Southern Kenya prone to frequent droughts. A small river flows through the community with water originating from the Mt Kilimanjaro glaciers. This small river water is shared by many communities downstream and attempts by the community to extract more water often lead to serious inter clan conflicts. The efforts here were to provide community based seasonal climate early warning in support of the community livelihoods including rational utilization of water and pasture resources by pastoralists, planting pastures (re-seeding of highly degraded portions of rangelands) and harvesting of grass seeds and hay during the good years (Fig 1). The hay and local grass fields are used to feed the young, weak, pregnant and other livestock that may not be able to travel/migrate far with the nomadic stock during pasture and water scarcity. The community is also practicing some open irrigation farming activities along the local river whenever adequate river water is available. Water sharing is a source of common conflict between the community and those leaving downstream. Fig 1: Osiram Maasai Women Group from Oloitokitok, Imbirikani preparing to plant pasture seeds after receiving information that the area specific seasonal climate outlooks indicates a good season ahead. 2 P a g e

3 Reru Community Reru area is located very close to Lake Victoria yet characterized by semi-arid conditions with large seasonal and inter annual variability in rainfall. The area has a large group of subsistence farmers, some of whom keep livestock. The pilot study in Reru comprised of dedicated members of a catholic church selected by the head priest. It was selected to enable the project test the impacts of the use of religious groups in communicating climate risk information and related information to about 120 farmers. Seasonal climate risk information were used not only to determine the priority crops of each season but also water management practices (Fig2) Fig2: Though maize is their main crop, sorghum was planted at Reru Community during a season forecasted to have depressed rainfall and its performance was excellent. Nganyi Community Nganyi community of Western Kenya has been providing indigenous based climate forecasts for generations. They have about 11 shrines (indigenous based observatories) that they use to monitor changes in various local parameters including specific trees, animals, insects, reptiles, stars, local climate observations, among others (Fig 3). The Nganyi community component of the project addressed the integration of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and RCOFs based local level climate outlooks. KMD installed a modern weather observatory near one of the local shrines. Fig 3: Climate monitoring trees aged about 100 years that flower a few weeks before rainfall onset 3 P a g e

4 KMD also provided the community with an FM radio station (RANET) for communicating community level early warning climate information. KMD also built a resource centre for the community that not only holds the RANET dissemination station but also the host for all local forums. This component of the project has not only triggered increased use of climate information by the community, but the impacts have extended beyond Kenya since similar efforts are now being tried in several countries in Africa. The major efforts to address the roles of IK in community based disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation at Nganyi community was initiated in 2000 through an ICPAC project funded by the then Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA) Program that was jointly supported by Canada s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the United Kingdom s Department for International Development (DFID). Details of these interventions are found in several publications outlined in the text box below. Under the current Rockefeller Foundation funded project, the release of local integrated forecasts at community forums have contributed to improved use of climate information by the community. Farmers in this community are now widely using climate information in planning and managing their agricultural operations. This has resulted into increased crop [maize and sorghum (Fig 4)] yields per unit area, proper land use planning and management including diversified production (intercropping), construction of soil erosion control structures, increased soil fertility management, improved Agro-forestry, etc. Farmers are now producing more food for immediate consumption, sale and storage for future use. It has been revealed that food being harvested in one season remains available till the next harvest. Fig 4: Part of a good maize harvest from a participating farmer in Nganyi 4 P a g e

5 Specific References on The Nganyi Community Interventions: Coping with local disasters using indigenous knowledge: Experiences from the Nganyi Community of Western Kenya (ISBN , LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing). Further information on Nganyi Community Interventions and Findings may be found in: Indigenous knowledge meets science, Ouma et al 2014; ( Linking traditional and modern forecasting in western Kenya ( and Integrating Indigenous knowledge for Community adaptation to climate Change: Case of Nganyi Community of Western Kenya (Int. J. Cur. Tr. Res (2013) 2 (1): ), Nyahera Community Nyahera communities comprise of peri-urban subsistence farmers. Their land is very fertile and is located within the outskirts of Kisumu City where any agriculture output (fresh or not) could directly earn income. The project attempted to demonstrate that maximum use of climate information in agricultural planning and decision making can generate sustainable food and income to the village women, elderly and youth that form the focus group in this area. Community-specific climate and related information were provided by ICPAC and KMD like for the other groups. Their crop yields have greatly improved (more than tripled) compared to the time when they were not using climate information. Due to their land-size limitations, they wish to start practicing intensive agriculture including greenhouse production of fresh vegetables and fruits, irrigation farming and rearing of local and cross-bred chicken and goats that have higher premiums in the neighbouring Kisumu city. Fig 5: A perfect comparison of two adjacent farms in which one farmer utilised project s climate information in his maize (Right) and the other who did business as usual (Left) in Nyahera Community After the dissemination of climate forecast information and related agro-advisories during seasonal climate downscaling workshops at individual locations, climate forecast updates 5 P a g e

6 were provided for each location every 10 days using an SMS Broadcasting System that was based at ICPAC. Farmers, Extension Officers and Local Leaders from all communities were linked to the SMS system. This greatly improved on the efficiency of communicating urgent updates (messages) and ensured wide coverage of the message. The SMS messages were meant to guide farmers in making tactical decisions as the seasons progressed. Fig 6: The agricultural sector participants at a Regional Climate Outlook Forum (RCOF), Courtesy ICPAC Fig 7: The End Mr. Samuel Mwangi, KMD forecaster discussing a downscaled (community level) climate outlook for October- December 2013 season to farmers, Courtesy ICPAC We are grateful to the contributors of this publication: Mr. Jasper B. Mwesigwa and Prof. Laban A. Ogallo (both from ICPAC), Mr. Samuel G. Mwangi (KMD), Dr. Gordon Wayumba (TUK), Dr. Gilbert Ouma (UoN), and Prof. Maria Onyango (JOOUST). Part of the work in this publication was funded by The Rockefeller Foundation. 6 P a g e