Enhancing food security through climate-smart agriculture in Kenya

Achieving sustainable food and nutrition security is one of the major challenges facing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Food crisis and chronic hunger reported by African governments and the global international community are a clear affirmation that millions of people in the continent are at risk of economic and climatic shocks that have threatened food security. Even though Kenya continues to enjoy a stable economic growth which is described as the fastest growing economy compared to other African countries, access to adequate quantities of nutritious food remains a challenge for majority of the population, living in the arid and semi-arid regions, which make up 80% of the country’s total land area. The situation in Kenya is intensified by the predominance of rain-fed subsistence agriculture being the main source of livelihoods to majority of the population. The impacts of climate change, which include increasing temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns, more severe and frequent extreme weather events and the loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity, undermine agricultural production systems and food systems. Therefore, climate-smart agriculture presents a great opportunity to transform agricultural systems and increase food production in the face of new realities of climate change. This study adopts the food and nutritional security conceptual framework which outlines the linkage between the three pillars of food security. Data analysis in the study presents a trend analysis of food security situation in Kenya based on hunger and food security indicators data derived from FAO. The study explores various policy measures that the Kenyan government has attempted to formulate over the years to achieve Sustainable Development Goals relating to poverty, nutrition, hunger, and environmental sustainability. This study also emphasizes the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Kenya to transform and reorient agricultural systems towards the efficient adoption of climate-smart practices.