Technical innovation and farm productivity growth in dryland Africa: The effects of structural adjustment on smallholders in Kenya

This paper uses non-parametric approach to measure technical innovation and productivity growth at the smallholder farm-level in dry-land sub-Saharan Africa during the initial years of the structural adjustment programmes for agriculture. Data from Kenya for two production years, 1991/2 and 1995/6 are used to construct a Malmquist productivity index. The results show that the rise in input prices led to reduced use of modern inputs, so that efficiency increased at 12% per year. However, lower use of modern varieties and less fertiliser also gave technological regression at 2.5% per annum, so that the overall outcome was productivity growth of 3% per annum. However, productivity improvement cannot be sustainable without technological progress.Farm Management, Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Range use and dynamics in the agropastoral system of southeastern Kenya

Occurrence of equilibrium and non equilibrium system dynamics in semiarid environments present serious management challenges. In these areas, resource management strategies are increasingly based on equilibrium rather than non equilibrium dynamics that assume simple system dynamics and strong coupling of animal-plant responses. This management approach underlies increasing trends of range degradation and low livestock productivity in these environments. To reverse these trends dictates greater understanding and alignment of grazing resource extraction strategies in space and time to prevailing system dynamics behaviour. In this study, range use patterns by free ranging herds under agropastoral herding were studied in two cycles of four consecutive grazing periods, in semiarid southeastern Kenya. The bites count and herd locations per area methods were used. While grazing thresholds in the system were derived from biweekly sward biomass measured by the quadrant technique in the growing period and stocking rates applied to a growth-consumption rate model. The analysis tested the responsiveness of the agropastoral herding strategies to the predominant system dynamics in the area. In this environment, high rainfall variability ranging from 71 to 98% is experienced across years and seasons, pointing to non-equilibrium dynamics in the system. The agropastoralists practiced seasonal range use and tracking strategies. During the dry season, areas of concentrated drainage; river valleys, bottomlands and ephemeral drainage ways absorbed a greater grazing load, taking 57.1 to 60% of the grazing time by the animals. In contrast, areas of limited moisture concentration, the open sandy/clay plains, were mainly exploited in the wet season and accounted for 52.6 to 55.6% of the grazing time. The agropastoralists tracked forage availability through use of multispecies livestock (cattle, goats and sheep) that exploited different grazing resources in space and time. These range use patterns and strategies tend to stabilize nutrient and energy flow to livestock and thus productivity throughout the seasons. Based on the growth-consumption rate model, grazing thresholds in the system are achieved at 13800, 13000, 4000 and 12300, 4600 and 12000, and 5600 and 11000 kgha-1 of grass biomass at, 2.5, 5, 7, 8 and 10 TLUha-1, respectively. 7 TLUha-1 represent the upper stocking rate limit in the system during the growing period. In this system, resource use strategies are in line with the predominantly non-equilibrium system behaviour. However, sedentary land use interventions and limiting farm sizes that restrict livestock mobility and negatively affect grazing resource diversity will undermine system stability and sustainable livestock production in the area.Key words: Agropastoralists, range use, system dynamics

Hydrologic properties of grazed perennial swards in semiarid southeastern Kenya

Identification of plant resources that persist under grazing pressure, support desirable levels of production and at the same time protect the grazing environment is central to sustainable livestock production. This study assessed the infiltration capacity and soil loss associated with perennial swards subjected to different levels of utilization using simulated rainfall. The hypothesis was tested that grazed perennial swards have similar hydrologic properties and threshold removal levels below which runoff increases markedly. Infiltration capacity for the perennial swards increased with increasing stubble height before leveling off towards the highest stubble height. A 50% removal of current growth was the upper limit above which runoffs from the swards increased rapidly. Aggregate stability, organic carbon and percent ground plant cover were the most significant attributes that influenced infiltration capacity. Panicum maximum and Enteropogon macrostachyus were the most suitable perennial swards with favourable soil physical properties and infiltration capacities in the study area. The results support the existence of a threshold level of sward stubble height for minimizing runoff.Key words: Perennial swards, water infiltration capacity, runoff thresholds

The challenges of rehabilitating denuded patches of a semi-arid environment in Kenya

Land degradation is a major problem in the semi-arid environments of Sub-Saharan Africa. Fighting land degradation is essential to ensure the sustainable and long-term productivity of the habited semiarid lands. In Kenya, grass reseeding technology has been used to combat land degradation. However, despite the use of locally adapted perennial grass species namely Cenchrus ciliaris (African foxtail grass), Eragrostis superba (Maasai love grass) and Enteropogon macrostachyus (Bush rye) failure still abound. Therefore, more land is still being degraded. The aim of this study was to determine the main factors which contribute to failures in rehabilitating denuded patches in semi-arid lands of Kenya. A questionnaire was administered to capture farmer perceptions on failures on rangeland rehabilitation using grass reseeding technology. Rainfall data was collected during the study period. Moreover, rehabilitation trials using the three grasses were done under natural rainfall. Results from this study show that climatic factors mainly low amounts of rainfall to be the main contributor to rehabilitation failures. 92% of the respondents asserted that reseeding fails because of low rainfall amounts received in the area. The study area received a total of 324 mm of rainfall which was low compared to the average annual mean of 600mm. Reseeded trial plots also failed to establish due to the low amounts of rainfall received. This showed how low rainfall is unreliable for reseeding. Other factors namely destruction by the grazing animals, pests and rodents, flush floods, poor sowing time, poor seed quality, lack of enough seed and weeds also contribute to rehabilitation failures in semi-arid lands of Keny

Dry matter yields and hydrological properties of three perennial grasses of a semi-arid environment in East Africa

Enteropogon macrostachyus (Bush rye), Cenchrus ciliaris L. (African foxtail grass) and Eragrostis superba Peyr (Maasai love grass) are important perennial rangeland grasses in Kenya. They provide an important source of forage for domestic livestock and wild ungulates. These grasses have been used extensively to rehabilitate denuded patches in semi-arid environment of Kenya. This study investigated the dry matter yields and hydrological properties of the three grasses under simulated rainfall at three phenological stages; early growth, elongation and reproduction. Laboratory seed viability tests were also done. Hydrological properties of the three grasses were estimated using a Kamphorst rainfall simulator. Results showed that there was a significant difference (p > 0.05) in dry matter yields and soil hydrological properties at the different grass phenological stages. Generally, all the three grasses improved the soil hydrological properties with an increase in grass stubble height. C. ciliaris gave the best soil hydrological properties followed by E. macrostachyus and E. superba, respectively. E. macrostachyus recorded the highest seed viability percentage. C. ciliaris and E. superba were ranked second and third, respectively. C. ciliaris yielded the highest biomass production at the reproductive stage followed by E. superba and E. macrostachyus, respectively. Key words: Cenchrus ciliaris, Enteropogon macrostachyus, Eragrostis superba, rangeland

Factors influencing transient poverty among agro-pastoralists in semi-arid areas of Kenya

In Africa, many pastoral households are increasingly settling in response to curtailed mobility and shrinking grazing areas. Households in pastoral areas are characterised by few resources, low income, low level of human and social capital, and limited access to markets and service institutions like credit institutions, extension and plant protection. This study was conducted to determine the factors that influence transient poverty among agro-pastoral communities in semi-arid areas of Kenya using the Njemps Flats in Baringo district as a representation of the study area. The land-use practice in the Njemps Flats is livestock and crop production (agro-pastolism). Regression techniques were used to determine the relationship between poverty and hypothesized explanatory variables. The number of livelihood sources, household size, distance to the nearest market, ownership of enclosures and household herd size were the most influential factors that determined poverty among agropastoral communities. The number of livelihood sources, education level of the household head, relief food, extension service and distance to the nearest markets were positively related to per capita daily income. A negative relationship was observed between per capita daily income and household size. Since poverty shows declining with positive influential factors, reduction of transient poverty can be achieved through enhancing and providing of livelihood alternatives to reduce over-reliance on livestock and land as primary sources of livelihood.En Afrique, tant de m\ue9nages pastoraux deviennent de plus en plus s\ue9dentaires en r\ue9ponse \ue0 la restriction de leur mobilit\ue9 et la r\ue9duction de la taille des fermes. Les m\ue9nages se touvant dans des milieux pastoraux sont caract\ue9ris\ue9s par d\u2019insuffisantes resources, revenus bas, un niveau bas du capital humain et social et un acc\ue8s limit\ue9 au march\ue9 et aux services institutionnels tels que la vulgarisation et la protection des cultures. Cette \ue9tude \ue9tait men\ue9e pour d\ue9terminer les facteurs qui influencent la pauvret\ue9 parmi les communaut\ue9s pastorales en r\ue9gions semi-arides du Kenya utilisant les habitations de Njemps en district de Baringo comme milieu repr\ue9sentatif de la r\ue9gion d\u2019\ue9tude. Le syst\ue8me d\u2019utilisation des terres y est domin\ue9 par l\u2019\ue9levage et la production agricole (agri-pastoralisme). Les techniques de regression \ue9taient utilis\ue9es pour d\ue9terminer la relation entre la pauvret\ue9 et les variables explicatoires hypoth\ue9tis\ue9es. Les sources de revenus, la taille du m\ue9nage, la distance du march\ue9 le plus proche, l\u2019appartenance des biens et le nombre du b\ue9tail constituaient des facteurs qui ont les plus d\u2019influence sur la d\ue9termination de la pauvret\ue9 parmi les communaut\ue9s agro-pastorales. Sources de revenue, niveau d\u2019\ue9ducation du responsable du m\ue9nage, nourriture pour soulagement, service de vulgarization et distance ds march\ue9s les plus proches \ue9taient positivement associ\ue9s au revenue journalier par personne. Une relation n\ue9gative \ue9tait observ\ue9e entre le revenu journalier par personne et la taille du m\ue9nage. Etant donn\ue9 que la pauvret\ue9 d\ue9cro\ueet avec des facteurs d\u2019influence positive, sa r\ue9duction peut \ueatre accomplie en am\ue9liorant et en fournissant d\u2019autres sources de gagne-pain pour r\ue9duire la d\ue9pendance sur l\u2019\ue9levage et la terre comme sources de bien-\ueatre familial

Technical innovation and farm productivity growth in dryland Africa: The effects of structural adjustment on smallholders in Kenya

This paper uses non-parametric approach to measure technical innovation and productivity growth at the smallholder farm-level in dry-land sub-Saharan Africa during the initial years of the structural adjustment programmes for agriculture. Data from Kenya for two production years, 1991/2 and 1995/6 are used to construct a Malmquist productivity index. The results show that the rise in input prices led to reduced use of modern inputs, so that efficiency increased at 12% per year. However, lower use of modern varieties and less fertiliser also gave technological regression at 2.5% per annum, so that the overall outcome was productivity growth of 3% per annum. However, productivity improvement cannot be sustainable without technological progress

Climate factors as determinants of food security in semi-arid Kenya: a longitudinal analysis

Food security in the arid and semi-arid areas (ASALs) of Kenya is linked to climate and socio-economic factors. This study was conducted in two ASAL counties of Kenya, Kajiado and Makueni, inhabited by pastoral communities. Both primary and secondary data were collected on climate and socio-economic aspects from published and unpublished documents. Time series data covering a 31 year period were collected on rainfall amounts, rain days, temperature, beef and maize prices, stocking, livestock sales and land under cultivation to generate descriptive statistics and regression results based on the OLS, GLS and AR models. Livestock contributed 78.2% and 38.3% of total income in Kajiado and Makueni Counties respectively. Crops contributed more to the total income in Makueni County at 52.7% compared to Kajiado County at 6.9%. Of the three models tested, the GLS was found to be the most appropriate based on the number of significant variables and the estimated R2 value. The model showed that rainfall, temperature, rain days, and beef and maize prices influence income in Kajiado and Makueni Counties. Therefore, creation of micro-climates through agroforestry moderates temperatures, attracts rainfall, sequesters carbon and provides services such as food, timber, raw materials and employment. Moreover, initiatives that regulate beef and maize prices ensure predictable markets and income in both counties

Tsetse control and land-use change in Lambwe valley, south-western Kenya

For a long time, trypanosomosis, spread by the tsetse fly Glossina, constrained human settlement in the Lambwe Valley, a south-western Kenya rangeland. After lengthy efforts to control tsetse over many years, the valley is currently experiencing an increase in human population growth rate, and rapid changes in land-use and cover are taking place. Using time-series aerial photograph interpretation, social survey methods, and a review of human population trends over five decades, a three-fold expansion in cultivation in the settled areas over a 50-year period, with a consequent decrease in woody vegetation cover was identified. In the Ruma National Park, occupying a third of the valley floor, shrublands and thickets have expanded while open grasslands have decreased. The sudden increase of land under cultivation adjacent to prime agricultural land designated for wildlife conservation, exacerbated by bush encroachment and dwindling resources for tsetse control could provide a situation suitable for land-use conflicts. Sustainability of this unique rangeland is dependent on how judiciously the resources are shared among all stakeholders in the valley. This study suggests continued tsetse surveillance and agricultural intensification in the settled areas to minimise chances of conflicts in land-use