Climate change impacts in Kericho County, Kenya
Kericho, one of the 47 counties in Kenya is famously known for its large scenic tea estates and is located in the Southern part of the Rift Valley. The town is well known for its high-quality Kenyan tea. The County hosts significant tea companies like Browns Plantations East Africa. There are other smaller companies like Kaisugu and the Mau Tea Companies. Agriculture is the mainstay of the people in Kericho County and majority of them depend on rain-fed agriculture. Farmers in the county grow tea and other food crops both for subsistence and commercial purposes.
In the recent past, the impacts of climate change have been felt in the county. The weather patterns are extremely unpredictable in the present times. There are longer dry spells followed by sudden heavy rainfall usually accompanied by hailstorms. These hail storms destroy tea crops, and hence cause a lot of losses to the farmers and the tea companies in the area. During the dry seasons, the tea crop yields reduces and hence lower incomes for the farmers. The farmers rely on the incomes from tea to meet their basic needs and pay school fees for their children. With lower incomes, some may not be able to even pay school fees for their children or get enough money to buy three meals in a day. For the companies, they are forced to reduce the amount of labour, hence many locals lose source of incomes during such periods. Longer dry seasons in the area also causes crop failure among the farmers, and threatens food security in the region.
In response to these challenges, people have resorted to engage in off-farm activities that can earn them incomes. They also grow hybrid varieties of food crops like maize and beans that take a shorter season to mature. They also grow more drought resistant crops like sorghum and millet which have more nutritional value. Farmers also practice mixed cropping. Tea farmers prune their tea when the dry season approaches. The tea companies have also widely researched on tea clones that are more drought resistant. These clones are also available and can be sold to the smallholder tea farmers. Farmers are also investing in harvesting water so that they can irrigate the crops during the dry season.