Scaling-up Climate Smart Water Harvesting Technologies to Increase Food and Nutrition Security in Semi-arid Kenya

This study seeks to increase agricultural productivity and resilience of farmers in Machakos, Baringo, Kajiado and Taita Taveta Counties by validating gender-responsive climate-smart water harvesting technologies, innovations and management practices, and strengthening innovation and knowledge exchange systems to increase access to information on the best fit climate-smart water harvesting technologies, innovations and management practices. The project will be implemented for two years at an estimated cost of 22 million Kenya shillings. About 10,000 farmers are expected to benefit directly from the project, with a spillover effect of up to 100,000 farmers. The World Bank through the Kenya Climate-Smart Agriculture Program (KCSAP) is supporting the research.

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• Summary of Validating Climate Smart Water Harvesting Technologies to Increase Food and Nutrition Security in Semi-arid Kenya

Improving Irrigation Water Efficiency and Functionality of Irrigation Schemes for Food Security in Water Deficit Counties

Application of ICT in supporting irrigation water use efficiency has not been adopted in Kenya despite its potential in addressing water scarcity. Sensor-based technologies have been applied in other parts of the world including Tanzania, Malawi, Australia and South Africa with impressive returns to investment in irrigation sub-sector. In addition, integrated research on soil parameters and water balance in drier parts of Kenya has the potential of increasing food security and nutrition and the share of irrigation value in the market. This collaborative research is therefore aimed at validating sensor-based irrigation TIMPS (Developed in Meru University of Science and Technology), soil and water productivity TIMPS (developed in KALRO) in three ASAL counties; Tharaka-Nithi, Kajiando and Machakos. Improved food productivity and farmers livelihoods will be major expected outcomes of successful project implementation.

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• Presentation on Improving Irrigation Water Efficiency and Functionality of Irrigation Schemes for Food Security in Water Deficit Counties.
• Summary of Improving Irrigation Efficiency Project

ONGOING PROJECT(S) UNDER AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND EXTENSION DEPARTMENT

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Project title:
Scaling-up Pathways of Last Mile Climate Information Services for Community Resilience in Uganda and Kenya

Funding Agency:
The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada is funding the project for a period of 3 years (2018 – 2021)

Project sites:
Kenya - Kitui, Machakos and Makueni Counties, and
Uganda - Soroti, Sembabule and Nakasongola Districts with Rakai District as the control site.

Participating Partners:
This is a regional project being implemented in Kenya and Uganda by the following partners: Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO) – the lead organisation, University of Embu (UoE), and Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD); and Uganda Chartered HealthNet (UCH) and Family Health International (FHI) in Uganda.

Project objectives:
Broad objective: To enhance the resilience of smallholder farming communities and households in Uganda and Kenya to the impacts of climate change

Specific objectives:

1. Contribute to better understanding of long-term costs and benefits of ICT mediated climate information services to small-holder farmers,
2. Assess effective strategies and pathways for scaling up ICT mediated climate information services with multi-stakeholders within the public sector and intermediaries to inform future scale-up design,
3. Examine the enabling environments and policy framework needed for ICT-mediated climate information services to advise current climate policy and legislatives processes in Kenya and Uganda, respectively, and
4. Develop and test monitoring, evaluation and learning framework needed to measure progress of the scaling-up process and create impact at scale. The project is expected to generate the following outcomes

Expected outcomes

1. Enhanced agricultural productivity and income among small holder farmers, and
2. Policy framework and Institutional arrangements for scaling up ICT mediated climate information delivery services operationalized

Team Members (Kenya Team):
Dr. Kizito Kwena (KALRO)     – Team Leader/Coordinator
Dr. Hezron Mogaka (UoEm)    - Team Member
Dr. Stella Matere (KALRO)    – Team Member
Dr. William Ndegwa (KMD)    - Team Member

Downloads

• Weather-based Agro-Advisory for Kitui Country
• Weather-based Agro-Advisory for Machakos Country
• Weather-based Agro-Advisory for Makueni Country