Background
Weather risk is a serious issue in the African small farm sector that will further increase due to climate change. Farmers typically react by using low amounts of agricultural inputs. Low input use can help to minimize financial loss in bad years, but is also associated with low average yield and income. Increasing small farm productivity and income is an important prerequisite for rural poverty reduction and food security. Crop insurance could incentivize farmers to increase their input use, but indemnity-based crop insurance programs are plagued by market failures.
This document presents a proposed methodology for public expenditure review and analysis for climate change adaptation and mitigation in the agriculture sector (PERCC) and its application to a case study of Kenya. It starts by explaining the basic methodological concepts, classification and labelling of public expenditures that allow for calculating spending in agriculture related to climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Climate change is threatening development gains and intensifying global inequities—putting peace and important gains in human well-being at risk.
Since 1979, IFAD has invested US$455.09 million in 20 programmes and projects in Kenya (at a total cost of US$980.31 million), in support of the Government’s efforts to reduce rural poverty. In Kenya, IFAD loans provide support to smallholders and value chain actors (such as agrodealers, private extension services, small traders and processors) in the dairy sector, aquaculture, livestock and cereal value chains. In addition, they strengthen the resilience of the natural resource base and improve access to rural financial services.
Climate smart agriculture (CSA) technologies are innovations meant to reduce the risks in agricultural production among smallholder farmers. Among the factors that influence farmer adoption of agricultural technologies are farmers' risk attitudes and household livelihood diversification. This study, focused on determining how farmers' risk attitudes and household livelihood diversification influenced the adoption of CSA technologies in the Nyando basin. The study utilized primary data from 122 households from two administrative regions of Kisumu and Kericho counties in Kenya.
Inclusive innovation is the means by which new goods and services are developed for and/or by the billions living on lowest incomes. Although a topic of increasing interest, it has been relatively under-researched and under-conceptualised to date. This article studies arguably the most successful new technology to reach low-income groups: the mobile phone, focusing specifically on its diffusion in Kenya. Systems of innovation are shown to be an appropriate frame for conceptualisation of inclusive innovation.
Seed is the starting point of plant life, and hence the most fundamental input of agriculture. A seed system that assures the availability of the desired quality of seed to the producer at the right time is indispensable for his farming enterprise. In the case of the potato crop, the seed most commonly used is strictly speaking no seed, but a tuber. The constraints and opportunities in seed potato systems in East Africa are of a combined social, economic and technical nature.
These proceedings include all the papers presented during the AISA workshop either as oral papers or as posters. It also includes the edited text resulting from the Living Keynote process, an innovation in itself.
The AISA workshop was held on 29-31 May 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya, as part of an international week devoted to Agricultural innovation in Africa. The AISA workshop focused on active social learning among participants, developed a collective "living keynote" about the following issues:
This methodological guide was initially developed and used in Latin America and the Caribbean-LAC (Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Dominican Republic), and was later improved during adaptation and use in eastern African (Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia) through a South-South exchange of expertise and experiences. The aim of the methodological guide is to constitute an initial step in the empowerment of local communities to develop a local soil quality monitoring and decision-making system for better management of soil resources.