Policy Notes & Briefs

Stakeholder feedback on a slaughterhouse hygiene intervention in western Kenya

The intervention implemented evaluated through the Improving Hygiene Practices in Slaughterhouses in Western Kenya study (Ambler, et al., 2024) aimed to address poor hygiene practices in slaughterhouses, which contribute to foodborne illnesses and unsafe meat. Conducted in 140 slaughterhouses across 6 counties in Western Kenya, the intervention focused on training workers, provision of basic hygiene equipment, and the use of monetary incentives to improve compliance with recommended hygiene practices. After the intervention period, key informant interviews (KIIs) were conducted with stakeholders including six County Directors of Veterinary Services (CDVSs), nine sub-county veterinary Officers (SCVOs), one Public Health Officer (PHO), and ten meat inspectors (MIs).

This report summarizes findings from the KIIs regarding perspectives on the intervention, sustainability, challenges with implementation, and provides a basis for recommendations on refining and scaling up or this approach.

Formative study on slaughterhouse hygiene in Western Kenya: Summary Report

Slaughterhouses in Western Kenya face critical challenges, including inadequate hygiene practices, poor infrastructure, insufficient water supply, and weak enforcement of regulatory standards. These deficiencies contribute to meat contamination and the transmission of zoonotic diseases such as Rift Valley Fever, brucellosis, and anthrax, as well as foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella sp. and pathogenic E.coli. Globally, foodborne illnesses result in millions of illnesses and hundreds of thousands of deaths annually, particularly among children under five. The public health and economic consequences of these risks in low and middle-income countries are significant (Havelaar et al., 2015; Jaffee et al., 2018). A qualitative study, based on interviews of key informants in the slaughter industry in Western Kenya and associated regulatory authorities, was undertaken in 2022 to document the state of slaughterhouse infrastructure and practices, explore barriers to compliance with regulatory standards, and identify practical solutions for improving conditions and enabling safer meat handling practices. This report summarizes the findings of that study and presents recommendations for interventions to improve slaughter hygiene practices.

Impact of a slaughterhouse hygiene intervention in western Kenya

Adherence to strict hygiene standards in slaughterhouses is critical for ensuring food safety and protecting workers from zoonotic disease. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) conducted a study to evaluate the impact of low-cost interventions on hygiene practices in slaughterhouses in western Kenya.

Effect of organic fertilizer use on crop yield and soil health in maize production in Kenya

Sub-Saharan Africa faces an elevated risk of food insecurity. The agricultural sector in Sub-Saharan African countries encounters significant challenges in increasing crop production to meet the ever-growing food demand driven by population growth and economic development. Nutrient management is a critical component of crop production, yet nutrient input levels in the region are notably low. In many areas of cropland, nutrient balances are in deficit (Liu et al., 2010). At the recent Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit, African leaders pledged to strengthen nutrient management practices to enhance food production through increased fertilizer use. Fertilizers can be categorized into different types. Most discussions on fertilizer policy to date have focused on inorganic fertilizers, which are produced through industrial processes. In contrast, organic fertilizers are derived from naturally occurring materials. The use of organic fertilizers may offer additional long-term benefits, particularly for improving soil health. Notably, soil organic carbon is a key indicator of soil health, and organic fertilizers, being rich in carbon, can contribute to increasing soil carbon content. A study was conducted to evaluate the impact of organic fertilizers on crop productivity and soil health, focusing on maize production in Kenya. Maize is the primary staple crop in Kenya, with a harvested area of 2.1 million hectares, representing about 40% of the total harvested area for all crops in the country (FAOSTAT). Maize is also the largest consumer of fertilizers in Kenya. It is estimated that maize cultivation uses 2.8 million tons of fertilizers annually, accounting for approximately 50% of the country's total fertilizer consumption. Fertilizers are applied on about 70% of the maize-planted area (IFDC & AFAP, 2018). However, the average maize yield in Kenya remains low, at less than 2 metric tons per hectare (FAOSTAT), indicating suboptimal management practices or inadequate input levels, including insufficient fertilizer use (De Groote, 2023).

Assessing the gender dimensions in the true costs of food production in Kenya

Key takeaways:
Gender-based environmental and social external costs create substantial economic inefficiencies in the agricultural sector.
The gender wage gap contributes 12.8% to total external costs.
Women's limited access to resources leads to reduced productivity, with female farmers investing 36% less in inputs than their male counterparts.
Workplace harassment, which disproportionately affects women, accounts for 10.8% of total external costs.
Unequal land management practices (women managing smaller plots) and having restricted access to improved agricultural inputs create additional inefficiencies in resource allocation and production outcomes.

Advancing climate-smart financial solutions for smallholder farmers: Lessons from the CGIAR Climate Resilience Initiative

Smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries face climate-related risks that increase their income volatility and compromise their well-being. The CGIAR Initiative on Climate Resilience (ClimBeR) has developed and implemented a suite of innovative instruments aimed at transforming the climate adaptation capacity of smallholder farmers. This brief examines the potential of these bundled financial solutions in enhancing smallholder farmers' resilience to climate risks and documents ClimBeR's experience in implementing and scaling these instruments.

Kenya: Economywide Risk Assessment

This study explores Kenya’s vulnerability to economic shocks and identifies those contributing most to economic uncertainty. The Kenyan Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model was employed to simulate a range of po-tential economic outcomes under various sampled shock scenarios developed using historical data to capture do-mestic agricultural yield volatilities and world market prices uncertainty for traded goods. Data mining and machine learning methods were applied to quantify the contribution of each shock to the uncertainty of economic outcomes (gross domestic product [GDP], private consumption, poverty, and undernourishment). Key findings suggest that domestic yield volatility is the key risk factor for GDP, urban consumption and poverty, while external risks, partic-ularly world beverage crop prices, are more significant for rural consumption and poverty. As the majority of those below the poverty line are rural farmers, world beverage price volatility is the top risk for national poverty levels. Finally, for undernourishment outcomes, domestic cereal yield volatility is the dominant risk factor for all household types. Understanding how possible shocks would impact various segments of the Kenyan economy and population is a critical first step in facilitating discussions on relevant risk mitigation strategies, such as increasing average crop yields, adopting technologies and practices that narrow yield uncertainties, or diversifying production away from risky crops and sectors.

From space to soil: Advancing crop mapping and ecosystem insights for smallholder agriculture

This project centers on in-season crop type mapping in Nandi County, Kenya, utilizing time-series Sentinel-2 imagery and supervised machine learning techniques. The objective is to produce accurate crop-type maps to support agricultural management activities such as yield estimation, acreage statistics, disaster damage assessment, and ecosystem evaluation. The approach leverages cloud-based computing, offering a customized and flexible solution that requires no prior knowledge of cloud infrastructure.

The true costs of food production in Kenya

Key takeaways
• True cost accounting allows for the measurement of hidden impacts of food production on the environment, human health, and society.
• Our findings show that at the national level for all crop sectors:
o Social costs account for 90% and environmental for 10% of external cost structure.
o Major social cost sources are underpayment, child labor, and occupational health risks.
o Major environmental cost sources are land-use expansion and climate change.
• Findings at farm level in NATURE+ Initiative sites in Kajiado, Kisumu, and Vihiga, for the crop sector show that:
o Direct costs (70% of true costs) are predominantly hired labor and seed costs
o External costs represent about 30% of the true costs
o Social externalities costs (84%) are greater than environmental costs (16%)
o Forced labor is the most important impact, followed by child labor, underpayment, and gender wage gaps
o Environmental externalities include land occupation (land use) and soil degradation

Qualitative fieldwork to identify CSA practices preferred by women farmers in India, Kenya, and Uganda

Promoting the adoption of climate-smart agricultural (CSA) practices is an important step toward enhancing farmer resilience to climate change. Given the differences in the resilience capacities, operating space, and response options of men and women farmers, it is imperative to understand the gendered preferences for and constraints to their adoption of CSA practices. This policy brief summarizes qualitative research conducted in rural India, Kenya, and Uganda to identify CSA practices preferred by women and men farmers. The findings highlight the need for gender-responsive finance models and information channels to ensure that support to climate change adaptation does not further widen the gender gap in agricultural resources, agency, and achievement.

Challenges and opportunities in implementing video-based extension approaches targeting women farmers: An implementer’s perspective

Agricultural extension services play an important role in agricultural development. Timely and reliable information services are key to improving farmers’ knowledge of strategies to increase agricultural productivity, assisting them in accessing inputs and credit, providing early warning against pests and other shocks, and offering them critical advice on climate action. However, equitable access to knowledge, information, and technology remains challeng ing in most countries. This inequity is even more pronounced among farmers from marginalized groups, including women farmers, resulting in their limited access to climate resilience-enhancing technologies and practices. This note summarizes findings from implementers of participatory video-based extension interventions in India, Kenya, and Uganda. The findings suggest that videos targeting women farmers can reach them effectively. Still, participa tory video-based extension should be accompanied by group discussions, providing complementary inputs, and dismantling other barriers that impede women’s agency and achievements in agriculture.

Insights from farmers and extension agents: Perceptions of a participatory video intervention in India, Kenya, and Uganda

Can participatory video-based extension increase awareness and knowledge of climate adaptation practices? Insights from rural Kenya

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has been promoted as a framework to identify a set of solutions that simultaneously sustain agricultural productivity and incomes, increase the resilience of agriculture, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, it has proven to be challenging to reach women farmers with information on CSA practices. This note summarizes results from a study that assessed whether participatory video-based extension approaches tailored to women’s preferred CSA approaches could reduce the gender gap in awareness and adoption of CSA practices in Kenya. The findings suggest that watching the videos increased awareness of the CSA practices promoted in the videos as well as other practices. However, watching the videos did not increase the adoption of the CSA practices. We propose strategies to strengthen the uptake of CSA practices alongside participatory video-based extension.

Gendered information channels for climate-smart agriculture practices: Evidence from India, Kenya, and Uganda

Lack of access to information is an important barrier affecting women farmers’ adoption of climate-smart agri culture (CSA) practices and technologies. To overcome this barrier, the use of information and communication technologies is increasingly being promoted. However, digital tools might widen, rather than reduce, gendered information gaps given women’s lower use of mobile phones and mobile Internet as compared to men in sub Saharan African and South Asia. This policy note summarizes data on information channels that women and men farmers use for CSA practices in Gujarat, India, parts of Kenya, and central Uganda. The results can be used by governments, nongovernmental organizations, and other actor groups interested in ensuring equity in access to information on CSA practices in low- and middle-income countries.

Examining the gender digital divide: A case study from rural Kenya

Worldwide, cell phones are used by 5.4 billion people. They are becoming increasingly prevalent in the rural areas of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), providing smallholder farmers with access to agricultural markets. If they reduce information asymmetries between women and men farmers, they can also contribute to closing the gender gap in agricultural productivity. So far, however, digital innovations have had limited success in transforming agricultural systems. This may be due, in part, to the gender gap in cell-phone use. Rural women in LMICs—particularly those with low incomes, low literacy levels, or disabilities—are less likely than rural men to have access to cell phones, the Internet, digital currency, or other digital services. This policy note summarizes research intended to shed light on the impact of cell-phone ownership and use on the gender gap in agricultural productivity in LMICs.

Do climate-smart agricultural practices support adaptation, mitigation and productivity? A review of CSA practices used in participatory video interventions in India, Kenya, and Uganda

Climate change poses a threat to smallholder farmers worldwide, impacting livelihoods and agricultural pro duction. At the same time, agrifood systems account for about one-third of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) offers synergistic practices that boost productivity, aid farmers in adapting to cli mate change, and have the potential to mitigate GHG emissions. This note reviews the extent to which a set of practices identified by smallholder farmers in India, Kenya, and Uganda for inclusion in a participatory video-based extension intervention meet the CSA criteria. The findings suggest that the practices hold triple-win potential but often several need to be applied as a package; they also need to be adapted to local conditions.

Poverty impacts of food price increases in Kenya

Kenya is potentially very vulnerable to sharp increases in the prices of key staple grains such as maize and wheat, both because these are important in diets and because Kenya depends on imports of these products. A first step in understanding the impacts of changes in the prices of these products is to examine developments in their prices on world markets. After a long period of relatively stable prices on world markets, the prices of key food staples began to rise from around the beginning of 2020. This period of price increases, spanning the COVID-19 pandemic and then the price shocks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raised serious concerns about the welfare of poor people in countries such as Kenya. Figure 1 shows the movements in the prices of four key grain staples—maize, rice, sorghum and wheat—from the beginning of 2020.

Transformation of Kenya’s agrifood system structure and drivers

Kenya experienced significant economic development in the 2009 to 2019 period. Gross domestic product (GDP)—an indicator of the economy’s size—expanded by an annual average of 5 percent (KNBS 2022). This exceeded population growth and helped raise household incomes, leading to a decline in poverty rates; more importantly, for the first time in at least three decades, the country experienced a decline in the absolute number of poor people (World Bank 2022). While the global COVID-19 pandemic caused negative economic growth in 2020, the economy recovered quickly in 2021. Kenya was also largely spared the adverse effects of the global commodity market disruptions arising from the Russia-Ukraine war that started in 2022 and from the global recession in 2023 (Arndt et al. 2023; Diao and Thurlow 2023). Kenya’s GDP growth is projected to reach 5.0 percent in 2023 and 5.3 percent in 2024 (World Bank 2023), suggesting that the economy is resuming its pre-pandemic growth trajectory. Agriculture remains an important sector, accounting for about one-quarter of GDP and nearly half of Kenya’s employment. It has thus played an important role in economic development. The sector has grown alongside the rest of the economy despite many challenges including climate variability (Ochieng et al. 2020), weak rural infrastructure (Benin and Odjo 2018), declines in farm size (Jayne et al. 2016), and limited access to farm inputs combined with poor agronomic management (Worku et al. 2020). In this brief, we look beyond primary agriculture to understand how Kenya’s broader agrifood system (AFS) is contributing to growth and transformation in the country.

Updated social accounting matrices for Kenya: An instrument for policy analysis and simulation

The policy brief provides an overview of the updated Kenya Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs). The current Kenya SAM which incorporates latest rebased national accounts data, supply and use tables and household budget survey, is an update of the previous SAM compiled for 2009 transactions. SAMs are used in conjunction with analytical techniques to strengthen the evidence underlying policies. The updated Kenya SAM 2021 identifies 90 production activities and commodities (products) across agriculture, industry, and services sectors. As an economy-wide data framework, SAM best captures priority production sectors outlined in the government’s new development plan (Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA)). For instance, priority sub-sectors highlighted in the plan include maize, dairy, cattle, tea value addition, expanding and revamping export cash crops such as coffee, cashew nuts, avocado, macadamia nuts and pyrethrum, revamping leather, cotton, pharmaceutical, and textile and clothing industries. Using this SAM data framework, analysis can be done to assess the likely impacts of implementing BETA on jobs, poverty and food security in Kenya. The SAM also in cludes 3 broad categories of production factors (land, capital and labour), and 15 household groups by quintiles. Highlight from Kenya SAM 2021 suggests that services sector contributed the largest share to GDP (57.8%), followed by Agriculture (23.4%), and Industry (18.7%). The brief also presents the share of ex ternal trade to total output and domestic demand, showing that Kenya exports more agriculture-related products while it imports more industrial products. In 2021, Kenya exported 7.1 per cent of its output while import share to domestic demand was 11 per cent, and in the agriculture sector, export to output share was 16.3 per cent. The Kenya SAM 2021 provides policymakers with the necessary data and analytical tools to design and implement effective policies to promote sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty and inequality.

A healthy diet is costly, but even with limited income Kenyans can eat better

Four important implications for policy to promote and guide a transformation toward healthy diets for all Kenyans can be drawn from this research: First, Kenya’s diet problem — the underconsumption of nutritious foods and increasingly high consumption of calorie-rich but micronutrient-sparse foods — is primarily a poverty problem. Most Kenyans simply cannot afford a healthy diet. Accelerated poverty reduction will have important nutritional benefits. Second, there are large differences between the costs of meeting dietary guidelines for highly nutritious foods and the costs of obtaining adequate amounts of calorie-dense staple foods. These cost gaps have a strong effect on household diets because the food choices of many Kenyan households are primarily driven by a need to satisfy calorie requirements. This points to a problem of relative food prices, which interacts with the poverty problem. It is most apparent for animal-source protein foods and, to a lesser degree, for vegetables. Thus, policy interventions and technological innovations that address this relative food price problem are needed to narrow the consumption gaps for nutritious food groups, particularly animal-source foods and vegetables. Third, the food preferences of Kenyans show that the poor-quality diets consumed by many households are not solely due to insufficient purchasing power and high prices for nutritious foods. This is most obvious for plant-based protein foods — pulses and nuts — which have low prices per calorie, but which few households consume in sufficient amounts to meet the recommended healthy intake. This weak consumer preference for such foods suggests a lack of knowledge of their nutritional value and their importance for healthy diets. Nutrition education may aid in changing consumer behavior to increase the consumption of pulses and nuts, as well as other nutritious foods that are now underconsumed relative to the healthy reference diet. Kenyans can consume more healthy diets with their current incomes. While healthy diets are costly for many Kenyan households, changes can be made in the current typical diet to achieve better and more balanced nutrient intake at the same cost. Finally, policies aimed at promoting food systems transformation in Kenya should factor in the dietary needs of Kenyans. As agriculture is the dominant sector in Kenya’s food systems, a balance must be found between traditional objectives including productivity growth, export stimulation, and farmer support, on the one hand, and the new responsibility of improving the availability of nutrient-dense foods for better nutrition and health for all Kenyans, on the other.

Measuring changes in Kenya’s agri-food system

Transformation of the agri-food system (AFS) is a leading pathway to achieve the USG Global Food Security Strategy Objective 1 of “Inclusive agriculture-led growth”. The AFS encompasses the primary agricultural sector, as well as all upstream and downstream agriculture-related activities. An expansion of the AFS’s off-farm components is central to the process of agricultural transformation and is strongly associated with economic development. The Percent change in value-added in the agri-food system (AgGDP+) and Employment in the agri-food system (AgEMP+) indicators are useful to track this process.

Impact of information on demand for safe food

Problems caused by eating unsafe food are a major health issue in many countries. Contamination by bacteria or toxins can cause these health risks, particularly for young children whose bodies are still developing. It can be difficult to know which foods are risky because you usually cannot tell by looking if food is contaminated. The goal of this research was to see whether giving consumers in Kenya information about one of these contamination risks would make them choose to purchase different products.

Farming Systems Analysis in support of user-centered research and innovation: A joint cross-initiative collaboration

Farming Systems Analysis (FSA) is commonly used in CGIAR to assess ‘what works where, and for who?’. The findings are used to prioritize tailored/context-specific interventions and target investments for greater impact. An assessment of seven new CGIAR initiatives showed us that FSA is employed in a similar way across these initiatives, open ing up avenues for strong collaboration and sharing of data, methods and results to achieve better synergies than we have done in the past.

Impacts of implementing the bottom-up economic plan of jobs, poverty, and food security in Kenya

This policy note presents results from an economy-wide model to assess the expected impacts of implementing the Bottom-Up Economic Plan in Kenya.
• The economywide modeling results suggest that the design of the Bottom-Up Economic Plan is consistent with its goals of achieving broad-based growth and benefiting the poor, particularly the poorest of the poor at the bottom of the pyramid.
• We estimate that 5 million jobs will be created, 5.5 million people will move out of poverty, and 2.9 million people will be lifted out of hunger by 2027 under the implementation of the Plan scenario, as compared to today.
• The structural transformation envisaged in the Plan is key for achieving higher middle-income status. Growth driven by productivity-enhancing private investments (especially in domestic manufacturing) and exports will lead to the acceleration of structural change.
• Growth led by the agricultural sector is far more effective at reducing poverty than a similar level of growth coming from nonagricultural sectors.

Edutainment, gender and intra-household decision-making in agriculture: A field experiment in Kenya

Oftentimes, a man’s opinion is valued over a woman’s, with women expected to take a back seat when decisions are made in their households and in society (Kawarazuka et al., 2019). Such social norms create unequal participation between female and male smallholder farmers in African agriculture. Additionally, it puts women in positions where they can be abused (and tolerate abuse), especially by their spouses. This is a threat to women’s empowerment, increasing gender gaps in society and within families. It is therefore imperative to address societal norms that do not allow a level playing ground for both sexes in agriculture.

Championing gender in agricultural services in Kenya

Key messages:
• Champion farmers are male and female influencers recruited to support the delivery of agricultural services to fellow farmers within their communities (including seeds, advisories, and crop insurance), thereby promoting gender and social inclusion.
• Providing insurance as a stand-alone product is too expensive to build a sustainable and cost-effective champion farmer model; there is a need to integrate the model with other services, including the provision of seeds, and to leverage government subsidies.
• Champion farmers face steep competition from other service providers in the provision of seeds, but their networks give them opportunities to tap into underserved markets, as they have connections with women-led farmer collectives.
• Female champion farmers’ socially ascribed gender roles and responsibilities related to homecare contribute to time poverty and drudgery and potentially inhibit the extent to which women can benefit from their champion role.
• It is necessary to promote a better understanding of insurance among farmers and build farmers’ trust in services and products through additional training of champion farmers, sensitization of farmers, and awareness creation.

Transforming food systems in Kenya for a new era of growth and prosperity: Research-based recommendations for the new government

The new Kenyan government faces a complex domestic and global environment, and it is widely expected to address key food and agricultural challenges with a new set of policies and programs. This policy brief presents key recommendations from a forthcoming book, Food Systems Transformation in Kenya: Lessons from the Past and Policy Options for the Future, which provides research-based “food for thought and action” to support the Kenyan government’s efforts to improve food security.

See it grow: Monitoring the use of stress-tolerant varieties and seed performance

Farming is an inherently high-risk activity, and farmers’ livelihoods depend on a set of interlinked environmental factors including weather, soil conditions, disease, pests, and more. Unfortunately, globally, many of the risks in agricultural production have been exacerbated by increasingly erratic and extreme weather patterns (Porter et al. 2014). One way to mitigate such climate risk is the use of seed varieties that are bred to be resilient to the types of extreme weather that crops regularly suffer, such as drought (Cacho et al. 2020). Use of such seeds can potentially help reduce insurance premiums to more sustainable levels, as drought-tolerant varieties could help mitigate losses from moderate droughts and thus insurance would only be required to cover farmers for losses associated with more severe droughts. In this project note, we examine to what extent the use of drought-tolerant varieties is associated with improved performance in the context of a crop insurance project in Kenya. We hypothesize that crops grown from drought-tolerant varieties sustain less damage than other varieties. We test this hypothesis and extend our analysis to ask if there are phenological differences between stress-tolerant varieties (STVs) and non-STVs that would affect the period during which insurance coverage is needed. Finally, since both reduced risk exposure and phenological differences could affect insurance payouts, and thereby insurance premiums in the longer run, we examine differences in farmers’ yields and insurance payouts between the two groups.

Kenya: Impacts of the Ukraine and global crises on poverty and food security

Global food, fuel, and fertilizer prices have risen rapidly in recent months, driven in large part by the fallout from the ongoing war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia. Other factors, such as export bans, have also contributed to rising prices. Palm oil and wheat prices increased by 56 and 100 percent in real terms, respectively, between June 2021 and April 2022, with most of the increase occurring since February. There is wide variation across products, with real maize prices increasing by only 11 percent, and rice prices declining by 13 percent. The price of crude oil and natural gas has also risen substantially, and the weighted average price of fertilizer has doubled. With these changes in global prices, many developing countries and their development partners are concerned about the implications for economic stability, food security, and poverty.

Post-harvest losses and food safety in tomatoes produced in Laikipia County

Kenya is one of the main producers of tomato within Africa south of the Sahara, with an estimated market value of USD 237 million as of 2012, most of which was produced for the national market (Sibomana et al., 2016). Within Laikipia, the total value of tomato production was estimated as 148.5 million KSh in 2014 (Ministry of Agriculture). Due to their softness and perishability, tomatoes have significant potential for both quality and quantity losses postharvest.

Post-harvest losses in potato in Nyandarua County

Irish potato is the second most important food crop in Kenya after maize (Kaguongo et al., 2014). Potato production in Kenya is expected to grow, as farmers are being encouraged both by climate shifts and by the government to diversify their production from reliance on maize. Many farmers are opting to grow potato because it is fast-maturing compared to maize and can be used to bridge the gap during shortages of the staple grain (ibid). However, significant barriers exist to more productive and profitable potato cultivation in East Africa, including low quality of seed potato, poor disease and soil fertility management, and high rates of post-harvest losses (Schulte-Geldermann, 2013). Average potato yields in Nyandarua County are 3-4 tonnes per acre per season, well below the 10 tonnes per hectare that can be realised by professional farmers using certified seed and sound agricultural practices (Kaguongo et al., 2014).

Women’s empowerment and COVID-19: A case study from Kenya

Research shows that the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic varied greatly by country, class, race and gender (Pangborn & Rea, 2020). In this study we aim to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected empowered and disempowered individuals differently. This policy note summarizes how income was affected by the pandemic, followed by an assessment of coping mechanisms with the crisis and their interactions with women’s empowerment.

Kenya commodity price report - December 2021

The Food Price Monitor: Kenya is a monthly report developed for the Food Security Portal (FSP), facilitated by IFPRI, with the goal of providing clear and accurate information on commodity price trends and variations in selected markets throughout Kenya. The reports are intended as a resource for those interested in agricultural commodity markets in Kenya, namely producers, traders, consumers, or other agricultural stakeholders.

Climate-smart crop insurance to promote adoption of stress-tolerant seeds: Midterm findings from a cluster randomized trial

Too often, smallholder farmers suffer severe financial consequences from extreme weather events, pests, and disease; and climate change will increase the frequency at which natural hazards occur. This poses a threat to livelihoods not only ex post, by reducing agricultural output and inducing farmers to sell their assets, keep children out of school or borrow at high rates; but also ex ante, by discouraging farmers from investing in high-return practices and technologies (Elbers et al., 2007). Innovative solutions are needed to help marginalized farmers prepare for these natural hazards. One solution, building upon decades of agricultural research for development, can be found in the breeding of crop varieties that are more tolerant to weather shocks, pests and disease. The resulting improvements in seed technology offer promising pathways to improve farmers’ adaptive capacity, crowd in investments in agriculture, and thereby enhance agricultural productivity (Emerick et al., 2016). At the same time, stress tolerance is not a bullet-proof solution against all hazards. Farming is risky by nature, and improved stress-tolerant varieties will not shield farmers from more severe hazards, or from risks for which stress tolerance was not an explicit breeding objective. Drought-tolerant varieties are, for instance, not necessarily disease tolerant as well. Improving resilience in the face of climate change will require a more complete solution, in which farmers invest in stress-tolerant varieties to reduce their exposure to moderate, manageable risks, whilst accessing other types of solutions, including financial services, to protect their livelihoods from more severe and catastrophic production risks. This project describes the findings from a research program in Kenya that aims to design, implement, and evaluate more complete risk management solutions; in particular, a solution that promotes stress-tolerant crops and varieties using an innovative picture-based crop insurance (PBI) product. The first describes this intervention and the study designed to measure its impacts, followed by an overview of key findings at midline. This will include insights on the scalability of picture-based claims settlement, opportunities for more gender-responsive program design, and demand for the insurance product. We conclude by describing key challenges faced whilst implementing these solutions and providing an outlook for the future.

Kenya Commodity Price Report - November 2021

The Food Price Monitor: Kenya is a monthly report developed for the Food Security Portal (FSP), facilitated by IFPRI, with the goal of providing clear and accurate information on commodity price trends and variations in selected markets throughout Kenya. The reports are intended as a resource for those interested in agricultural commodity markets in Kenya, namely producers, traders, consumers, or other agricultural stakeholders.

Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on rural women and men in Kenya

The first wave of COVID-19 cases occurred between June and August 2020. A second wave occurred between October and December 2020 and by the end of December 2020, the number of COVID-19 cases was 92 459. The third rise in cases occurred between January and March of 2021 and partial lockdowns were reimposed in the most affected counties of the country, including mobility restrictions and curfews. This brief releases data on the gender impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural households/livelihoods and the agricultural sector in Kenya.

Kenya Commodity Price Report - October 2021

The Food Price Monitor: Kenya is a monthly report developed for the Food Security Portal (FSP), facilitated by IFPRI, with the goal of providing clear and accurate information on commodity price trends and variations in selected markets throughout Kenya. The reports are intended as a resource for those interested in agricultural commodity markets in Kenya, namely producers, traders, consumers, or other agricultural stakeholders.

Kenya commodity price report - September 2021

The Food Price Monitor: Kenya is a monthly report developed for the Food Security Portal (FSP), facilitated by IFPRI, with the goal of providing clear and accurate information on commodity price trends and variations in selected markets throughout Kenya. The reports are intended as a resource for those interested in agricultural commodity markets in Kenya, namely producers, traders, consumers, or other agricultural stakeholders.

Kenya commodity price report - August 2021

The Food Price Monitor: Kenya is a monthly report developed for the Food Security Portal (FSP), facilitated by IFPRI, with the goal of providing clear and accurate information on commodity price trends and variations in selected markets throughout Kenya. The reports are intended as a resource for those interested in agricultural commodity markets in Kenya, namely producers, traders, consumers, or other agricultural stakeholders.

Kenya commodity price report - July 2021

The Food Price Monitor: Kenya is a monthly report developed for the Food Security Portal (FSP), facilitated by IFPRI, with the goal of providing clear and accurate information on commodity price trends and variations in selected markets throughout Kenya. The reports are intended as a resource for those interested in agricultural commodity markets in Kenya, namely producers, traders, consumers, or other agricultural stakeholders.

A new model for inclusive seed delivery: Lessons from a pilot study in Kenya: Leveraging champion farmers’ entrepreneurial know-how to reach the last mile

Climate change has exacerbated the frequency and severity of extreme weather events affecting the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa. Risks such as increased droughts, pests, floods, and heatwaves are projected to increase significantly in future years. The formal seed sector is an important entry point to help farmers better manage these risks, as it provides access to high-quality certified seeds of improved stress-tolerant varieties, selected and bred to maximize productivity in good years, whilst reducing the impact of climate change risks in bad years. The challenge, however, is that the formal market is not always inclusive and is more accessible to middle- or largescale (and often male) farmers. Smaller farmers (often female) are more likely to obtain seeds from informal sources (friends or peers) or collect their own seeds from the crops they grow. This creates social inequities in distribution channels for quality seeds; and in qualitative research, farmers informed us that the COVID-19 pandemic has further restricted their access to inputs.

Kenya commodity price report - June 2021

The Food Price Monitor: Kenya is a monthly report developed for the Food Security Portal (FSP), facilitated by IFPRI, with the goal of providing clear and accurate information on commodity price trends and variations in selected markets throughout Kenya. The reports are intended as a resource for those interested in agricultural commodity markets in Kenya, namely producers, traders, consumers, or other agricultural stakeholders.

Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on rural women and men in Kenya

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kenyan government declared a nationwide dusk to dawn curfew in March 2020 that was lifted in large parts later in the year, followed by off-and-on reinstatements of curfews and limitations on mobility largely for the capital region. The government also banned religious and other public gatherings and encouraged people to work from home and practice social distancing. The government has extended social protection programs, including public works programs and stipends and cash transfers, which are often targeted to women and single parent households and other vulnerable members of society to support them through the pandemic.

Assessing the risk of COVID-19 in Feed the Future countries

In anticipation of the development of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine—the distribution of which will be a complex and sensitive issue—governments will need to assess the number and location of the most vulnerable people within their populations. Problematically, however, tracking data for most low- and middle-income countries are only available at the national level. The most widely used dataset by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (Dong, Du, and Gardner 2020), for example, does not include subnational data for Feed the Future’s 12 target countries in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) and South Asia: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, and Uganda. For this reason, the Gender, Climate Change, and Nutrition Integration Initiative (GCAN) was commissioned to correlate Demographic and Health Survey data from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with geospatial data in order to develop a subnational dataset of key COVID-19 risk indicators based on which potential risk hotspots were identified. This summarizes the study’s analysis in the 12 Feed the Future countries and across subnational administrative units within each country.

Assessing the risk of COVID-19 in Kenya

As COVID-19 vaccines are becoming available, governments will need to assess the number and location of the most vulnerable people within their populations. However, problematically, tracking data for most low- and middle-income countries are only available at the national level. To support the COVID-19 relief effort, the Gender, Climate Change, and Nutrition Integration Initiative (GCAN) was commissioned to develop a subnational dataset of key COVID-19 risk indicators and potential risk hotspots.

Post-harvest losses in potato in Nyandarua county

Irish potato is the second most important food crop in Kenya after maize (Kaguongo et al., 2014). Potato production in Kenya is expected to grow, as farmers are being encouraged both by climate shifts and by the government to diversify their production from reliance on maize. Many farmers are opting to grow potato because it is fast-maturing compared to maize and can be used to bridge the gap during shortages of the staple grain (ibid). However, significant barriers exist to more productive and profitable potato cultivation in East Africa, including low quality of seed potato, poor disease and soil fertility management, and high rates of post-harvest losses (SchulteGeldermann, 2013). Average potato yields in Nyandarua County are 3-4 tonnes per acre per season, well below the 10 tonnes per hectare that can be realised by professional farmers using certified seed and sound agricultural practices (Kaguongo et al., 2014).

Lessons learned on scaling Aflasafe® through commercialization in Sub-Saharan Africa

Aflatoxin contamination of several crops is common in tropical and subtropical regions. Maize and groundnut, staples for billions of people, are among the most susceptible to contamination, primarily caused by the fungus Aspergillus flavus. Globally, an estimated 25 percent of aflatoxin-prone crops are contaminated with aflatoxins and/or other mycotoxins. Depending on the dose and exposure period, these toxins can cause severe health detriments in humans and animals. Farmers producing contaminated crops cannot sell to premium markets, including export markets.

Food safety in tomatoes produced in Laikipia county

Kenya is one of the main producers of tomato within Africa south of the Sahara, with an estimated market value of USD 237 million as of 2012. Tomatoes are vulnerable to a number of pests. As a result, pesticides are commonly applied to tomato in Kenya. The fleshy nature of tomato means that chemicals can easily soak into the edible part of the crop, leading to potentially high residual levels of pesticides.

Promoting seed systems for stress-tolerant varieties at scale: Potential for bundling with insurance-advisory services

Smallholder farmers may suffer losses from ex-treme weather events, pests and disease. This is expected to worsen in the face of climate change. Natural disasters are a threat to food security not only ex post, by inducing farmers to sell their as-sets, keep children out of school or borrow at high rates; they also threaten livelihoods ex ante, by discouraging farmers from investing in high-return practices and technologies (Elbers et al., 2007). Fortunately, significant progress has been made in the past two decades in developing and releasing seeds with genetic traits that are more tolerant to weather shocks, pests and disease. These im-provements in seed technology are offering prom-ising pathways to improve farmers’ adaptive ca-pacity, increasing investments and thereby agri-cultural productivity (Emerick et al., 2016).

Foodborne disease in Kenya: County-level cost estimates and the case for greater public investment

The right to safe food is enshrined in the Kenyan constitution. Through their jurisdiction over matters of agriculture – specifically crop and animal husbandry, abattoirs, and veterinary services – and health, including the licensing and control of undertakings that sell food to the public, county governments in Kenya have a critical role to play in meeting this obligation to their citizens. Food safety has ‘public good’ characteristics and requires sufficient public investment. Appropriate budgetary allocation for food safety investments, requires that county governments understand the current costs of foodborne disease (FBD), as well as the gains they could achieve through improved public capacity to manage food safety risks. However, due to limited availability of data attributing ill-health to specific causes, as well as general under-reporting of health complaints to medical systems, estimates of the health and economic costs of foodborne disease (FBD) in Kenya exist only at the national level. In the context of devolution, the lack of county-specific estimates constitutes a barrier to effective policy-making regarding the control of FBD. In this study, we combine recent national estimates of the health burden attributable to FBD from the World Health Organization (WHO) with county-level data on diarrhea rates to estimate the health and economic burdens of FBD for Murang’a, Laikipia, Nakuru, Nyandarua, and Nairobi counties.

Gender and resilience to health shocks: Evidence from financial and health diaries in rural Kenya and Nigeria

Health shocks (unpredictable illnesses and injuries) are an important source of risk for individuals in developing countries. In the absence of formal financial products such as health insurance or health savings accounts, unexpected illness or injury can have severe consequences. The burden of responding to health shocks often falls disproportionately on women, since they usually act as primary caregivers in households, and as a result are responsible for managing the health of children or elderly dependents. Despite this, much research around the uptake of health insurance or other risk-management products focuses on households instead of individuals, without considering how gender may affect individual preferences for, and access to, these products. To address this issue, this policy brief uses a unique dataset on individuals from rural households in sub-Saharan Africa to demonstrate how the financial lives of men and women differ in important respects, and how these differences may have important implications for policy on universal access to health services.

Technologies and strategies for aflatoxin control in Kenya: A synthesis of emerging evidence

Aflatoxin is a poisonous substance produced by a fungus, Aspergillus flavus, that occurs naturally in soils of cultivated and non-cultivated areas. The fungus commonly produces the toxin in maize, groundnut, and other staple grains and vegetables, and is especially prevalent in Africa. When animals consume feed contaminated with aflatoxin, milk and (at very low levels) meat, fish and eggs, can also be contam-inated. This note brings together recent research from the CGIAR and others on technologies for aflatoxin control in Africa and provides recommendations for catalyzing their adoption.

Traceability of horticultural produce in Kenya: Situation and trajectory

Traceability is the ability to track a product through all stages of production, processing and distribution (including importation and at retail). In the context of horticultural produce, if consumers become ill from the food they have eaten, or food is found to contain a harmful chemical, traceability allows this food to be traced from the shop where it was purchased, to the trader who delivered it, to the factory that processed or packed it, and ultimately to the farm where it was grown. In this way, the source of the problem can be identified, and corrective action can be taken [1]. While traceability does not itself guarantee food safety, it is considered a fundamental component of modern food safety systems. In traceability systems, it is good practice to use unique codes to identify blocks of land, individual farms, farmer groups, intermediaries, packers and processors. Each crate of carrots, for example, has its own unique code. By entering this code into a database, one can see on which parcels of land the carrots were grown.

Traceability of horticultural produce in Kenya: Situation and trajectory

Traceability means it is possible to trace food back to its origin. If consumers become ill from the food they have eaten, or food is found to contain a harmful chemical, traceability allows this food to be traced from the shop where it was purchased, to the trader who delivered it, to the factory that processed or packed it, and ultimately to the farm where it was grown. In this way, the source of the problem can be identified and corrected [1]. Traceability is considered a fundamental component of modern food safety systems.

Regulatory compliance in the Kenyan dairy sector: Awareness and compliance among farmers and vendors

The purpose of this research note is to describe relevant policies and standards, and to summarise recent research and literature to gain insight into compliance with dairy standards in Kenya. We highlight key points of the main policies pertaining to the sale of dairy products, and present unpublished findings from three recent studies conducted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners and the results of a rapid literature review.

Factsheet on capacities in agricultural higher education: University of Eldoret, Kenya School of Agriculture and Biotechnology

Credible quantitative and qualitative information on existing capacities in agricultural higher education agencies in Africa are crucial for strategic planning, policy formulation, setting priorities and benchmarks, measuring progress toward benchmarks, and identifying capacity gaps. Decisionmakers require a solid understanding of existing staffing and student capacities in the higher education sector, as well as in the wider agricultural innovation systems in Africa south of the Sahara. Access to such information supports effective policymaking to address capacity issues in higher education, agricultural research, extension, and other areas. Such information remains extremely limited, however. To fill this need, the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI/IFPRI) and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) initiated a partnership to pilot the collection of this type of data for RUFORUM’s member universities. This factsheet presents the available data results for Africa University, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources. An online version of the data is available via the Portal on Agricultural Capacity in RUFORUM Universities: www.asti.cgiar.org/RUFORUM.

Factsheet on capacities in agricultural higher education: Maseno University, Kenya School of Agriculture and Food Security

Credible quantitative and qualitative information on existing capacities in agricultural higher education agencies in Africa are crucial for strategic planning, policy formulation, setting priorities and benchmarks, measuring progress toward benchmarks, and identifying capacity gaps. Decisionmakers require a solid understanding of existing staffing and student capacities in the higher education sector, as well as in the wider agricultural innovation systems in Africa south of the Sahara. Access to such information supports effective policymaking to address capacity issues in higher education, agricultural research, extension, and other areas. Such information remains extremely limited, however. To fill this need, the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI/IFPRI) and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) initiated a partnership to pilot the collection of this type of data for RUFORUM’s member universities. This factsheet presents the available data results for Africa University, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources. An online version of the data is available via the Portal on Agricultural Capacity in RUFORUM Universities: www.asti.cgiar.org/RUFORUM.

Factsheet on capacities in agricultural higher education: Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology Faculty of Agriculture

Credible quantitative and qualitative information on existing capacities in agricultural higher education agencies in Africa are crucial for strategic planning, policy formulation, setting priorities and benchmarks, measuring progress toward benchmarks, and identifying capacity gaps. Decisionmakers require a solid understanding of existing staffing and student capacities in the higher education sector, as well as in the wider agricultural innovation systems in Africa south of the Sahara. Access to such information supports effective policymaking to address capacity issues in higher education, agricultural research, extension, and other areas. Such information remains extremely limited, however. To fill this need, the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI/IFPRI) and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) initiated a partnership to pilot the collection of this type of data for RUFORUM’s member universities. This factsheet presents the available data results for Africa University, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources. An online version of the data is available via the Portal on Agricultural Capacity in RUFORUM Universities: www.asti.cgiar.org/RUFORUM.

Factsheet on capacities in agricultural higher education: Pwani University, Kenya School of Agricultural Sciences and Agribusiness

Credible quantitative and qualitative information on existing capacities in agricultural higher education agencies in Africa are crucial for strategic planning, policy formulation, setting priorities and benchmarks, measuring progress toward benchmarks, and identifying capacity gaps. Decisionmakers require a solid understanding of existing staffing and student capacities in the higher education sector, as well as in the wider agricultural innovation systems in Africa south of the Sahara. Access to such information supports effective policymaking to address capacity issues in higher education, agricultural research, extension, and other areas. Such information remains extremely limited, however. To fill this need, the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI/IFPRI) and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) initiated a partnership to pilot the collection of this type of data for RUFORUM’s member universities. This factsheet presents the available data results for Africa University, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources. An online version of the data is available via the Portal on Agricultural Capacity in RUFORUM Universities: www.asti.cgiar.org/RUFORUM.

Factsheet on capacities in agricultural higher education: South Eastern Kenya University School of Agriculture and Veterinary Services

Credible quantitative and qualitative information on existing capacities in agricultural higher education agencies in Africa are crucial for strategic planning, policy formulation, setting priorities and benchmarks, measuring progress toward benchmarks, and identifying capacity gaps. Decisionmakers require a solid understanding of existing staffing and student capacities in the higher education sector, as well as in the wider agricultural innovation systems in Africa south of the Sahara. Access to such information supports effective policymaking to address capacity issues in higher education, agricultural research, extension, and other areas. Such information remains extremely limited, however. To fill this need, the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI/IFPRI) and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) initiated a partnership to pilot the collection of this type of data for RUFORUM’s member universities. This factsheet presents the available data results for Africa University, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources. An online version of the data is available via the Portal on Agricultural Capacity in RUFORUM Universities: www.asti.cgiar.org/RUFORUM.

Factsheet on capacities in agricultural higher education: University of Nairobi, Kenya Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

Credible quantitative and qualitative information on existing capacities in agricultural higher education agencies in Africa are crucial for strategic planning, policy formulation, setting priorities and benchmarks, measuring progress toward benchmarks, and identifying capacity gaps. Decisionmakers require a solid understanding of existing staffing and student capacities in the higher education sector, as well as in the wider agricultural innovation systems in Africa south of the Sahara. Access to such information supports effective policymaking to address capacity issues in higher education, agricultural research, extension, and other areas. Such information remains extremely limited, however. To fill this need, the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI/IFPRI) and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) initiated a partnership to pilot the collection of this type of data for RUFORUM’s member universities. This factsheet presents the available data results for Africa University, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources. An online version of the data is available via the Portal on Agricultural Capacity in RUFORUM Universities: www.asti.cgiar.org/RUFORUM.

Factsheet on capacities in agricultural higher education: Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya School of Agriculture, Veterinary Sciences and Technology

Credible quantitative and qualitative information on existing capacities in agricultural higher education agencies in Africa are crucial for strategic planning, policy formulation, setting priorities and benchmarks, measuring progress toward benchmarks, and identifying capacity gaps. Decisionmakers require a solid understanding of existing staffing and student capacities in the higher education sector, as well as in the wider agricultural innovation systems in Africa south of the Sahara. Access to such information supports effective policymaking to address capacity issues in higher education, agricultural research, extension, and other areas. Such information remains extremely limited, however. To fill this need, the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI/IFPRI) and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) initiated a partnership to pilot the collection of this type of data for RUFORUM’s member universities. This factsheet presents the available data results for Africa University, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources. An online version of the data is available via the Portal on Agricultural Capacity in RUFORUM Universities: www.asti.cgiar.org/RUFORUM.

Factsheet on capacities in agricultural higher education: Egerton University, Kenya Faculty of Agriculture

Credible quantitative and qualitative information on existing capacities in agricultural higher education agencies in Africa are crucial for strategic planning, policy formulation, setting priorities and benchmarks, measuring progress toward benchmarks, and identifying capacity gaps. Decisionmakers require a solid understanding of existing staffing and student capacities in the higher education sector, as well as in the wider agricultural innovation systems in Africa south of the Sahara. Access to such information supports effective policymaking to address capacity issues in higher education, agricultural research, extension, and other areas. Such information remains extremely limited, however. To fill this need, the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI/IFPRI) and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) initiated a partnership to pilot the collection of this type of data for RUFORUM’s member universities. This factsheet presents the available data results for Africa University, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources. An online version of the data is available via the Portal on Agricultural Capacity in RUFORUM Universities: www.asti.cgiar.org/RUFORUM.

Kenya: Agricultural R&D Indicators Factsheet

This country factsheet presents key agricultural R&D indicators in a highly accessible visual display. The publication also features a more in-depth analysis of some of the key challenges that the country’s agricultural R&D system is facing, and the policy options to address these challenges.

Food safety in Kenya: Focus on dairy

Food safety in Kenya: Focus on fruits and vegetables

Incentives and subsidies for farmer adoption of food safety technologies

Unsafe food is a major cause of disease in developing countries, accounting for an estimated 2 million deaths per year globally and comprising a burden of illness comparable to that of malaria or tuberculosis (WHO, 2015). Reducing the risk of foodborne disease typically requires improvements in food production, processing, and handling practices from farm to fork. However, inducing these changes in the absence of effective regulatory enforcement is challenging because food safety is unobservable and is generally not rewarded by higher prices in markets. In Kenya, a prominent public health concern is contamination of maize, a major staple crop, with the fungal byproduct aflatoxin.

Agricultural mechanization and south-south knowledge exchange: What can Ethiopian and Kenyan policymakers learn from Bangladesh’s experience?

This note synthesizes one of the two study tour reports written by the participating African officials. This report provides observations made by participants from Ethiopia and Kenya, the two East African countries with participants on the tour.

Exposure to aflatoxins greater among poor in eastern Kenya

This study is the first to show the significant association between poverty and aflatoxin exposure. Yet, whether or not aflatoxin truly causes child stunting is a question that can only be answered through a rigorous approach, such as a randomized-controlled trial. In the meantime, knowing that the poorest families are at the greatest health risk from this food-borne toxin suggests that ad-dressing aflatoxin contamination should be a priority for policy-makers concerned about the welfare of the poor. Furthermore, a better understanding of how better-off families manage to miti-gate aflatoxin exposure can be used to develop strategies that pro-tect the poor.

2015 Nutrition country profile: Kenya

The 193 individual country profiles capture the status and progress of all UN Member States, and the 80+ indicators include a wealth of information on child, adolescent and adult anthropometry and nutritional status, in addition to intervention coverage, food supply, economics, and demography. This tool is particularly useful for nutrition champions at the country-level, as it presents a wide range of evidence needed to assess country progress in improving nutrition and nutrition-related outcomes.

Learning about adaptation possibilities by talking to Kenyan female and male farmers separately

In Kenya and elsewhere, male and female farmers have different roles and responsibilities on the farm. What this means in terms of how they will adapt their farming practices in the face of a changing climate, and what governments, development agencies, NGOs, and researchers can do to facilitate this, is not so well known. We set out to explore gender differences in how men and women perceive climate change and its impacts, and the ways they are responding to these changes by interviewing a woman and man in 400 Kenyan rural farming households. We asked the same set of questions of the men and women, and found interesting similarities and differences in their answers.

Climate adaptation and agriculture: Solutions to successful national adaptation plans

The purpose of this brief is to share insights on agriculture and NAPs with national-level decision makers in developing countries and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), multilateral agencies, UNFCCC negotiators and donors. This brief explores how countries are overcoming the biggest challenges in developing NAPs, outlines examples of successful cross-sector adaptation planning, explores influence and leverage necessary for successful NAP processes, and offers specific recommendations.

Organizational and institutional responses to climate change: Insights from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Mali

This policy note summarizes research exploring the challenges and opportunities associated with building human, organizational, and institutional capacity to respond effectively to the adverse impacts of climate change as they relate to agriculture and rural livelihoods in developing countries. The findings offer insights into levels of awareness, practices, and organizational and institutional issues based on interviews with practitioners involved in climate change adaptation in government agencies, local and international organizations, and think tanks in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Mali.

What values motivate farmers to adopt climate-smart practices? Empirical evidence from a means-end chain analysis in Kenya

This brief presents the main insights from a study that assessed how the values and motivations of Kenyan farmers influence their adaptation of climate-smart practices in crop and livestock management.

Gender, collective action, and climate change: Qualitative insights from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Mali

Climate change poses great challenges for poor rural people in developing countries, most of whom rely on natural resources for their livelihoods and have limited capacity to adapt to climate change. It has become clear that even serious efforts to mitigate climate change will be inadequate to prevent devastating impacts that threaten to erode or reverse recent economic gains in the developing world. Individuals, communities, and policymakers must adapt to a new reality and become resilient to the negative impacts of future climate changes. Research has demonstrated that assets, broadly defined to include natural, physical, financial, human, social, and political capital, play a fundamental role in increasing incomes, reducing vulnerability, and providing pathways out of poverty. Assets are essential to poor peoples’ ability to cope with climatic shocks and to adapt to the long-term impacts of climate change.

A rapid initial assessment of the distribution and consumption of iron-folic acid tablets through antenatal care in Kenya

Gender, climate change, and group-based approaches to adaptation

This policy note summarizes the findings of two literature reviews on the gender-differentiated impacts of climate change and the scope for community-based adaptation. It also outlines the framework used to guide these analyses and the other papers summarized in this series.

2014 Nutrition country profile: Kenya

The policy landscape for climate change adaptation: A cross-country comparison of stakeholder networks

An increasing body of research is focusing on the question of how poor agricultural households will both perceive and be affected by climate change. In view of its predicted effects, the need to identify effective adaptation strategies is urgent. Against this background, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and partner organizations in the four study countries— Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Mali—embarked on research to support policymakers and development agencies in strengthening the capacity of male and female smallholder farmers, livestock keepers, and fishermen and women to manage climate-related risks. This policy note summarizes research designed to identify key actors engaging in climate change adaptation in the four study countries in order to disseminate research results more effectively in those countries.

Mitigating aflatoxin exposure to improve child growth in eastern Kenya

An estimated 165 million children worldwide under age five have stunted growth (Black et al., 2013). Growth retardation in young children is associated with delays in cognitive development, lower school achievement, and lower earnings in adulthood. Data from the 2008-2009 De-mographic and Health Survey in Kenya suggest that 35 per-cent of children under age five in Kenya are stunted. What is intriguing is that the same data show that the former Eastern Province of Kenya has less poverty and lower prevalence of childhood illness than five of the other seven provinces in the country (KNBS and ICF Macro, 2010), yet stunting in this region is 20% higher than the national average. This suggests factors beyond poverty and illness are in affecting child growth here.

Gender, shocks, and resilience

Do women control what they grow? The gendered use of KickStart’s pumps for irrigation in Kenya and Tanzania

Biological controls for aflatoxin reduction

Aflatoxin exposure is frequent and widespread in most African countries where the key staples, maize and groundnut, are particularly vulnerable to aflatoxin contamination. Aflatoxin-producing fungi are ubiquitous in Africa where they occupy soil and colonize diverse organic matter while producing spores that associate with crops leading to aflatoxin formation. Aflatoxins need to be managed throughout this region. A biological control technique that greatly reduces aflatoxin contamination of susceptible crops has been developed by USDA-ARS and is used commercially in the U.S. Over the past decade, USDA-ARS with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, has sought to adapt the biological control technology for use in Africa. This effort has resulted in several highly effective aflatoxin management products specifically targeted to regions in need in countries across sub-Saharan Africa. The first generation African biological control products are currently in evaluation trials in farmer’s fields in East, West and Southern Africa environments. Aspergillus flavus occurs in nature in complex communities composed of both aflatoxin-producers and isolates that do not produce aflatoxins (atoxigenic strains). Application of carefully selected atoxigenic strains at appropriate stages in crop development shifts the community composition within the production area from one dominated by aflatoxin producers to one in which beneficial atoxigenic strains dominate. This results in decreased crop aflatoxin contamination. Changes in the A. flavus community structures induced by atoxigenic strain applications occur without increases to the overall amount of A. flavus in the environment and without increases in the amount of the crop infected. Prior to large-scale use in a target country, biocontrol products must be registered with that country’s national biopesticide regulatory agency through a complex process. Registration is based on efficacy, safety, quality and social/economic value of a product. Due to high potential of the technology to reduce aflatoxins, further efforts are required for widespread adoption of biocontrol by creating a flexible and enabling system for biopesticide regulation in tandem with other policy and institutional support. Currently there are atoxigenic strain biocontrol products under farmer’s field evaluations in several African countries extending from West Africa to East and Southern Africa. These products need to be moved into wide use to reduce aflatoxin exposure to the human populations across Africa.

Farmer perceptions of aflatoxins: implications for intervention in Kenya

Aflatoxicosis: Evidence from Kenya

Mitigating aflatoxin exposure to improve child growth in eastern Kenya

Agricultural growth and poverty reduction in Kenya: technical analysis for the Agricultural Sectoral Development Strategy (ASDS)—Medium Term Investment Plan (MTIP)

The aflacontrol project: reducing the spread of aflatoxins in Kenya: summary report

East African agriculture and climate change: A comprehensive analysis - Kenya

This summary note is an excerpt from the chapter on Kenya that will appear in the peer-reviewed IFPRI monograph, East African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis.

Agricultural land management: Capturing synergies among climate change adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation, and agricultural productivity

Coping with climate variability and adapting to climate change in Kenya: Household and community strategies and determinants

Trends of staple food and input prices: Global and regional overview, 2007-2011

Kenya: Recent developments in public agricultural research

Since the early 1990s, public agricultural research and development (R&D) spending in Kenya has varied considerably from year to year, while agricultural research capacity showed a more stable trend.1 In 2008, Kenya spent 4.5 billion Kenyan shillings or 154 million PPP dollars (both in 2005 constant prices) on agricultural R&D. Unless otherwise stated, all investment data in this note are expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP) prices. PPPs reflect the purchasing power of currencies more effectively than do standard exchange rates because they compare the prices of a broader range of local-as opposed to internationally traded-goods and services. Agricultural R&D spending increased modestly during the 1980s, when several government and higher education agencies involved in agricultural research were established. The variation in spending since the early 1990s, however, was mostly the effect of fluctuations in donor funding and, to a lesser extent, government contributions to KARI.

Implementing information requirements for GM commodities under the cartagena protocol article 18.2(A): at the national level: the case of Kenya

This note summarizes a study on the implications of implementing strict information requirements for genetically modified (GM) commodities under Article 18.2(a) of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety in Kenya. The results show that enforcement of strict “*does contain*” requirements, compared with the default “*may contain*” option, would create additional costs and challenges in the difficult implementation of import regulations.

The role of poultry in Kenyan livelihoods and the ex ante impact assessment of HPAI on livelihood outcomes

Assessing the impact of an avian flu impact in Kenya

Local markets, local varieties: Rising food prices and small farmers' access to seed

There are no easy solutions to the ongoing food price crisis. Maize and wheat prices doubled between 2003 and 2008, and the price of rice doubled in the first four months of 2008, rising 33 percent in a single day. Even with declines in food prices later in 2008, prices remain well above 2000–2005 levels. To address the complex causes of this phenomenon, IFPRI has recommended a combination of “emergency” and “resilience” actions. One of the proposed policies emphasizes the need to boost agricultural production. This “emergency” agriculture package requires carefully targeted subsidies to ensure increases in production of major foodcrops (rice, wheat, and maize) in favorable environments with good soils, moisture, and market infrastructure. Following the Green Revolution model, delivery of improved varieties of seed, fertilizers, and other inputs, along with targeted, short-term subsidies, would augment production through higher yields rather than area expansion, so that scarce land can be reserved for other crops and uses. As part of the “resilience” package, IFPRI proposes scaled-up investment in agricultural growth to bolster production responses over the longer term. Until recently, public complacency regarding food abundance has contributed to a prolonged decline in agricultural investment by aid donors and developing-country governments. In-depth field research—undertaken by IFPRI with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and other partners in India, Kenya, and Mali—brings to light new evidence about farmers’ access to seed and the role of village markets in supplying it, with a focus on semi-arid environments. The findings point to several policy options aimed at improving the effectiveness of these markets, which can be crucial for reducing the potential negative impacts of high food prices. Such options might be considered in tandem with those recommended for more favorable environments, where seed systems already function more effectively. This brief introduces the issues that drove this research project, relevant concepts, and methods. The accompanying briefs present findings of specific country case studies.

Biosafety and biodiversity risks

What is Biosafety Risk? The potential biosafety risks of transgenic varieties have generated controversy in the international community. According to the U.S. National Research Council (2002), these risks include (1) the flow of transgenes, (2) evolution of resistance in the targeted pest population, (3) plant escape and establishment of self-reproducing populations, (4) effects on nontarget species, and (5) health hazards (NRC 2002).

Predicting famer demand for Bt Maize in Kenya

The Importance of Maize Improvement in Kenya Agriculture is the leading sector in Kenya’s economy, providing employment to more than two-thirds of the population. Maize continues to be the major food staple, and Kenyans have one of the highest rates of maize consumption per capita in Africa. Kenya experienced spectacular maize breeding successes in the 1960s and 1970s, with diffusion curves for hybrids as steep as those of the U.S. Corn Belt in preceding decades (Gerhart 1975). In the past few decades, however, a number of factors have contributed to stagnating national maize production, including a secular (long-term) decline in soil fertility and decreasing public research investments.

Crucial determinants of adoption: material systems for banana and maize

Trait-based genetic change is broadly defined as the selection of traits for insertion and the choice of background planting material. For the technology to materialize, growers must perceive the yield advantages of the inserted traits. Field surveys confirm that farmers can readily discern stemborers and the losses they cause to maize crops (De Groote et al. 2004). In contrast, farmers have greater difficulty observing hidden biotic agents, such as nematode infestation of banana roots. This is further complicated by farmers incorrectly identifying the cause and effect of the pest or disease; for example, farmers often attribute the visible damages caused by Fusarium wilt, a soil-borne fungus, as well as nematodes, to weevils, and vice versa (Gold et al. 1993). Aware of these challenges, Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization has targeted more than one trait for insertion.