Revisiting Climate Change Mitigation Potential in Smallholder Farming Systems in Kenya

Cooperating countries: Kenya and Austria

Coordinating institution: BOKU Vienna, Eugenio Díaz-Pinés, eugenio.diaz-pines@boku.ac.at

Partner institution: Maseno University

Project duration: 1 September 2023 - 31 August 2025

Abstract:

Smallholder farming systems are vulnerable to climate change, and this is particularly true in subsistence agricultural systems in Kenya. In the Nyando region (western Kenya), extensive baseline information was gained in 2012-2014 about land management and their effects on the contribution to climate change in the frame of the Standard Assessment of Agricultural Mitigation Potential and Livelihoods (SAMPLES) project. Following a socio-ecological questionnaire related to management, and landscape stratification, soil information from >200 farms was obtained and greenhouse gases (GHG) were investigated in situ (60 farms). The project in the region ended, and legacy information, largely unpublished, is still available from the project coordinator.

The RECLIK project will deepen the understanding of long-term management effects on C sequestration and the GHG balance of agricultural lands in the region. We will re-analyze the existing information, and conduct a re-sampling of selected farms to gain a 10-year long chronosequence of changes in C stocks in the region. A participatory workshop at the beginning of the project will involve farmers and other stakeholders in the process of identifying relevant management practices. The land management from 2013 to present will be specifically investigated. Soil samples from selected farms will be investigated for C and nutrient stocks, isotopic composition and will be incubated for GHG fluxes, in the frame of capacity building activities. Two closing workshops (Maseno and BOKU) will be organized to present our results and engage different stakeholders, as a basis for a policy brief that, by jointly addressing environmental consequences and social limitations, will assist the adoption of specific management practices.

The RECLIK project will serve as a basis for a more in-depth research project in the region, particularly with the identification of relevant actors and the consideration of their own perspectives, towards sustainable use of natural resource for climate change mitigation along with achieving food security.