Farm-Level Agricultural Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Change Extension Manual

Abstract

Climate change and variability is acknowledged as a global phenomenon with potentially far-reaching implications to many economic sectors. It is characterized by increased recurrence of droughts, floods, rainfall variability (pattern, timing and intensity), increased mean surface temperature and famine that threaten millions of people, crops and livestock systems. The developing countries and the poor in society are highly vulnerable to impacts of climate change despite the minimal contribution (less than 10%) to the annual global carbon dioxide emissions. The increasingly observed weather risks threaten the agricultural production systems and food security conditions for majority of population in Kenya. Farmers who largely practice subsistence farming for livelihoods are characterized by degraded soils, small farm sizes, and low crop yields. Therefore, sustaining farmers’ agricultural growth and minimizing climate related shocks is crucial in building farmers and food production system resilience. Agricultural adaptations to climate change need to be resilient to deal with stresses and disturbances. These adaptations can either be technological, institutional or policy interventions to help farmers build resilience to current and future climate related shocks as well as mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.