Catherine Mungai (CCAFS)

Gender & Social Inclusion in Climate-Smart Agriculture:Experiences from Nyando CSVs

Workshop on Gender-Sensitive Climate Smart Agriculture in Eastern & Southern Africa 2 - 4 November 2016, Nairobi, Kenya

CCAFS Gender and Social Inclusion

• Goal: ensure that rural women and youth benefit from CCAFS’ contribution to poverty reduction, enhanced environmental resilience, improved food security, human health and nutrition.

• Strategy: undertake research to: Increase the control of women and youth over productive assets and

resources, and Promote their participation in decision making Inform, catalyze and target CSA solutions to women, youth and

vulnerable groups that do not increase their workloads

Women are central to agriculture in developing countries within a broader social context ;other categories or characteristics also affect opportunities: caste, socioeconomic class, age, ability

GSI Strategic Research

1. Analysis and update of data collected to date in the Gender Household Survey, to provide a baseline in relation to the gender and youth sub-IDOs;

2. Analysis of household decision-making in adaptation and mitigation.

3. Enabling mechanisms, tools and frameworks for gender in CSA, along with strategies for scaling up and measurement frameworks

4. The potential for climate finance instruments to support women’s adaptation and mitigation-based enterprises

5. Global and national climate policy research will investigate the extent to which women and gender are integrated; work with national and global policy makers.

• High poverty incidence (46%) and high population density (>400 per Km2)

• More than 40% of landscape degraded• Annual rainfall 900-1200mm

Study site - Nyando

• Food insecurity, 81% of families experience 1-2 hunger months a yr

• Another 17% experience 3-4 hunger months a yr

Climate-smart interventions

• Drought and disease tolerant cereals (maize and sorghum) and root crops (sweet potatoes, cassava)

• Improved land management practices, incorporating fruit trees to improve nutrition and enhance soil carbon content

• Water harvesting to increase access to water during drought

• Improved beekeeping - building skills and knowledge of farmer groups (including women)

6

• Improving local breeds of small ruminants - heat tolerant, parasite resistant, faster maturing Gala goats and Red Maasai sheep

• Aquaculture – stocking tilapia fish in the water pan fitted with liner

• Poultry – confined ranges for local indigenous chicken and upgrading with improved breeds

• Agro-forestry and tree nursery management groups

Climate-smart interventions

CSA technologies and practices 

%HH aware of and using CSA practices and technologies

Male Female Total n (51)

Improved high yielding varieties (HYVs) 53.1 46.9 96.1

Scientific weather forecasting 52.2 47.8 92

Efficient fertilizer use 52.3 47.7 86.3

Cover cropping 50 50 82.4

Improved stress tolerant varieties (STVs) 54.8 45.2 82.4

Manure management 43.9 56.1 80.4

Terraces/bunds 51.3 48.7 78

Agroforestry 56.8 43.2 72.5

Integrated pest management 45.9 54.1 72.5

Destocking 61.1 38.9 70.6

Crop residue mulching 51.5 48.5 64.7

Water harvesting 51.6 48.4 62

Composting 55.2 44.8 58

Improved feed management 61.5 38.5 51

Adoption of resilient livestock breeds 60.9 39.1 46

Traditional weather forecasts 38.1 61.9 41.2

Tree nurseries 63.2 36.8 37.3

No/minimum tillage 41.2 58.8 34

Green house production 40 60 19.6

Both female and male are aware and using CSA interventions

Women are just as likely, or more likely to adopt CSA practices as men – when aware

Uptake of CSA

Uptake of CSA – Crops

Changes in cropping strategies • Preferred adaptation strategy is introduction of new crop

varieties (cowpeas, Sorghum and beans) that are high yielding, shorter cycle, drought and flood tolerant.

• New crops introduced are Pigeon pea and Finger millet that are heat and drought tolerant. Maize and groundnuts are two main crops that some households have stopped growing due to decreased rainfall and poor soil fertility.

• Soil improvement changes include use of manure/composting, mulching and rotations.

The membership of all farmers groups in the CSVs consists of about 60% women.

• Women are leading some of the crop demonstrations where they teach the local community about improved agronomic practices and new resilient crop varieties like pigeon peas.

9

• 6 women groups in Nyando namely; Obinju Self Help Women Groups (SWHG), Achego Border SWHG, Odeyo Nyalo SWHG, Cham Luchi SHWG, Ng’onglo SHWG and Agoro Utaweza SHWG to coordinate a program that involves use of demonstration plots by women farmers for knowledge sharing and seed multiplication in local communities

Uptake of CSA

Uptake of CSA – Change to Farm animals • These include new breeds (diseases

and heat resistant, fast growing, short gestation period, rapid weight gain, twining rate) of chicken, sheep and goats.

• Livestock management practices include herd reduction and zero-grazing units.

Uptake of CSA

Diversifying livelihood strategies • Women in all the household types are spending more time on off-

farm activities than men such as making and selling baskets and ropes, working in sugarcane plantation and factory, food for work program, small business, selling farm produce and charcoal.

Access to and use of weather information • Households’ access weather information (start of the rainy season

and drought), through radio and orally from traditional forecasters, family and neighbors. Women households (without influence of men) access seasonal and short term weather information. More men accessed information on livestock production than women.

Access and use of resources for climate change adaptation

• Women access & use of assets are bound by complex property rights & cultural rituals

• Ownership & access to assets (e.g., land, livestock) is highly correlated to economic status, gender, education, wealth and position in the household, e.g., unmarried women with children & unmarried youth have limited access to assets.

• Women in all household categories have to seek for consent from men

Uptake of CSA

Training and learning events

• A total of 280 Nyando CSVs women farmers were trained on climate-smart agriculture at the Kisumu Agricultural Society of Kenya Fair.

• Farmer learning events, 2,500 out of the 3,500 participants were women.

• Their understanding of resilient agricultural practices and tools that they can use on their farms increased, and they were also linked to a women micro-finance scheme.

Uptake of CSA

Youth involvement in CSA • Kamula Youth Group are piloting the smart farm concept. This

involves extensive water conservation and management, adoption of greenhouse farming, integration of aquaculture and seed bulking of fodder for livestock and horticultural crops.

• The farm measuring half hectare is jointly managed by 10 group members.

• The group has a goal of empowering each member to own a similar farm within four years in their homes

• On average, the smart farm set-up costs about US$ 3,000 as initial investment and yields at least twice that amount in a year through farm produce sales.

Estimated yearly earnings from fish are US$ 2,000 per earth dam. The horticultural produce is expected to yield about US$4,000. The March 2016 harvest yielded 867 fish each selling at Kshs. 150 making on average kshs. 130,000/= or 1300 USD.

Success Factors

• Active engagement and willingness to participate by target women and youth in the CSVs

• Strong partnership established with women and youth groups and linked to local government and other NGOs, research institutions and also private sector

• Capacity building through learning events and participation in trade fairs and also farmer-to-farmer exchange visits

• Identification and targeting of technologies and practices building on local knowledge, needs and priorities of the target communities

Challenges and barriers

The sustainability of CSA interventions depend on the extent to which they are suited to the local context and whether they address existing social dynamics and power relations

• Social and cultural factors that hinder adoption of CSA e.g. hierarchical planting/ harvesting patterns – early maturing plants

• Available CSA technology and practices not gender sensitive e.g. irrigation

• Labour intensive CSA practices and technologies• Lack of skills of knowledge to apply technologies and practices e.g.

weather related apps – education • Insufficient financing and investments for CSA especially by women and

youth.

A researcher perspective – lack of gender indicators to monitor, lack of capacity among M&E staff to gather gender and social inclusion information

THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION