How rural women are fighting climate change

Milcah Chepkemoi and her group have been given galla goats and dorper sheep: early maturing breeds that they hope to use to replace indigenous breeds [Courtesy]

'Climate Change' is not a common term in everyday conversations. It is even less common in rural West Pokot. The reality of a warming planet is however never lost on anyone: the recent drought has left many families struggling to put food on the table. For pastoralists whose lives revolve around livestock, climate change has knocked closer home than for the average city dweller in Kenya.

"Drought has cost us many livestock," says David Lomonyang, a herder. "In search of pasture, we go as far as Uganda."

For women - the homemakers - climate change is being felt in the kitchen: with food getting scarcer says Selina Roron, a mother of 10.

Spread your risks

"The weather is very unpredictable these days," Mrs Roron says. "Droughts are longer and rain can either be too heavy or inadequate for planting."

Roron is the chair of a 30-member group in Sendai Chepai village in West Pokot taking part in Women Economic Empowerment through Climate Smart Agriculture, a project funded by Korean International Cooperation and implemented by UN Women and Food Agriculture Organisation in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and State Department for Gender.

The group has been undergoing training for the last year on modern farming techniques that improve food production, climate change notwithstanding.

"Climate-smart agriculture means farming methods that ultimately yield good harvest even in the face of unpredictable weather patterns," says Monica Silinyang, also a mother of 10.

So, how are the women putting lessons learned to work?

Always have a kitchen garden:

In the Pokot community men are tasked with herding cattle. Sometimes they travel hundreds of kilometers for months on end.

"The women and the children are left behind," says Mercy Tumkou, the project manager. "We have asked women in the groups to have active kitchen gardens from which they can access vegetables for daily consumption; especially when the men have gone on long herding excursions."

Just a few feet from the family's mud-walled-and-grass-thatched kitchen hut, Roron has established a vibrant kitchen garden with a variety of indigenous local vegetables like black nightshade (saga), Amaranth (terere) and pumpkin (malenge).

Certified seeds:

The rains, Roron says, have become "shorter and erratic." Instead of continuing to grow local seed varieties that take long to mature it has become increasingly better to go with early maturing seed varieties.

"For instance, the indigenous onion seeds we use take five or six months to be ready for harvest. We now plant a variety that matures within three months. This way, we are able to harvest faster before changing weather would have an effect," she says. Certified seeds - which they access through agro vets in Kapenguria - are also drought- and disease-resistant.

"They do well under low rain conditions and one does not need to spend money on buying pesticides to ensure a bumper harvest."

Crop rotation:

In many parts of Kenya the practice has been that farmers grow maize or beans year in year out. One of the effects of climate change has been heavy pest attacks. The spread of fall armyworms in the last five years is a case in point.

Mono-cropping is very susceptible to such pest attacks; denying farmers the chance to harvest adequately from their work.

"I do crop rotation: I plant a new species after every harvest. I plant beans, onions, maize and kale. This way I lower the risk of losses from pest attacks and just from consistently growing a crop that would do badly under our environmental conditions," says Emily Chesista, a member of Roron's group.

Prolific livestock:

Livestock is the currency by which the Pokot transact. Livestock is the centerpiece of life.

"Livestock give us meat and milk. We use livestock in paying bride price," says Milcah Chepkemoi, chair of another group in Kong'elai location.

Chepkemoi's group received the Dorper sheep breed.

The Dorper is a mutton breed developed in South Africa suitable to rear in semi-arid areas.