Extreme weather events in Kenya - such as prolonged drought and floods - have led to significant livestock deaths and crop failures, jeopardizing the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and rural communities.

To promote sustainable agricultural development and enhance the resilience of rural communities to climate change impacts in agriculture, Kenyan universities are building their capacity to teach new curricula to students and deliver demonstrations and trainings in the county that adhere to the highest environmental and social safeguarding standards.

The Department of Plant Sciences at Chuka University, a public university in Tharaka Nithi County, some 200 miles from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, has made the teaching of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) a priority, and partnered with Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) to build its capacity to teach new curricula to students, and deliver demonstrations and trainings that adhere to the highest environmental and social safeguarding standards.

This collaboration alongside AICCRA partnerships with three other universities in Kenya - Murang’a University of Technology, Taita Taveta, Laikipia - who have all designed and implemented climate-smart curricula for agricultural extension workers, with capacity building and technical assistance.

AICCRA’s role in these partnerships is to connect these universities with the science and innovation of CGIAR, the world’s largest publicly funded research partnership for food security.

The partnership is therefore building foundational knowledge and skills to manage climate risk in agriculture in the tertiary and higher education sector in Kenya, training the next generation of agriculture leaders, and in turn, potentially millions of Kenyan smallholder farmers.

The road that led to the AICCRA-Chuka University partnership began with an extensive stakeholder consultation with the Tharaka Nithi County government, the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, farmer cooperative groups, the private sector, and other farmer groups.

AICCRA assessed the needs of smallholder farmers in Tharaka Nithi County and prioritized which validated climate-smart innovations and technologies that were compelling and suitable solutions for that context.

Chuka University then undertook the most extensive in-person demonstration of CSA by the university in Tharaka Nithi County to 1,000 farmers from ten farmer groups.

The university reached these thousand farmers through onsite training at the university farm (called Kairini) as well as offsite community level training delivered through farmer field days:

The training sessions covering eight key areas including:

• Farm enterprise selection, where farmers produce goods and services consumers need, for profit
• Cropping systems
• Animal nutrition
• Use of multipurpose trees
• Postharvest handling of agricultural commodities
• Soil and water conservation
• Soil fertility and plant nutrition
• Integrated pest management strategies

Eight farmers’ training manuals were developed as reference materials to supplement the farmers’ training on each of these topics.

“This training in climate change will meet the great demand for scientific expertise, in developing and applying appropriate climate change adaptation measures to enhance sustainable crop production, nutrition quality and environmental protection.” - Dr. Grace Abucheli, Chuka University, Principal Investigator

The Chuka University curricula is awaiting accreditation from the Commission for University Education in Kenya. Proposed courses include:

• Agroecology and Climate Change (MSc)
• Crop Protection (BSc)
• Landscaping and Ornamental Horticulture (BSc)

“Climate change is real, the young generation should take up the challenges to learn, research and innovate for a better tomorrow.” - Joyce Njihia, MSc student at Chuka University.

Environmental and social safeguards are central to the planning and implementation of all field activities under the AICCRA project, which is funded by the World Bank and follows the Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework (ESF).

In this regard, the partnership between the AICCRA and Chuka University led to a comprehensive environmental and social safeguard audit of the university’s operation.

Based on issues identified by the audit, the university has:

• Provided waste bins for safe disposal of both chemical and non-chemical waste
• Constructed a storeroom for storage of fertilizers and agrochemicals
• Separated washrooms for men and women
• Installed a diversity of occupational health and safety posters
• Built sediment blockers to check erosion-induced sedimentation
• Planted trees to improve protection for the nearby river body and local biodiversity

The university farm workers and the lead farmers who use the plots were trained on the safe sourcing, storage, handling and application of agro-chemicals and use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). 

Going forward, Chuka University and AICCRA plan to ‘bundle’ more climate information services with CSA, to enable farmers to access and use weather and climate information in a user-friendly, timely and efficient manner to better adapt farm practices to a changing climate.

“This partnership is timely to build the capacity of farmers for on-farm resilience through training on localized climate-smart agriculture innovations and qualified personnel with the climate-responsive curricula.” - Alex Nduah Nderi, Research Associate, AICCRA

Authors

Alex Nduah, Adams Kwaw, Dr. Grace Abucheli and edited by Esther Nzuki