Influence of agro-pastoralism dynamics on food security among small scale farmers in chepareria division, west pokot county, kenya

Abstract

Food security is a concern that has been prioritized by the global community through the declaration on sustainable development goals (sdg 2) and kenya’s big four agenda. Most of the previous studies show that there exist a knowledge gap relating to how agro-pastoralism dynamics that include climate change, land size, land tenure and ngo interventions could contribute to addressing the gap as well as address the challenges of food shortage and the high prevalence of acute malnutrition both global acute malnutrition (gam) and severe acute malnutrition (sam), that is, among children under five years. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of agro-pastoralism dynamics on food security among small-scale farmers in chepareria division, west pokot county, kenya. The objectives of the study were: to determine the influence of climate change on food security; to establish the influence of land size on food security; to assess the influence of land tenure systems on food security and to determine the influence of ngo interventions on food security among small scale farmers in chepareria division, west pokot county. A sample size of 364 was established using krejcie and morgan table for determining the sample. The study utilized stratified, simple random sampling and purposive sampling to determine the respondents. In the sample we had 320 small scale farmers, 4 chiefs, 13 county government officers. Data was collected using questionnaires for small scale farmers, interview schedules for chiefs and county government officers and focused group discussions for small-scale farmers. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis especially from interviews, while questionnaires using descriptive and inferential statistics by employing statistical package for social science (spss version 22) software. The study established that there was a negative influence which was insignificant relationship between climate change and food security; there was a positive and significant relationship between land size and food security; there was a positive but insignificant relationship between land tenure and food security and lastly, there was a positive and significant relationship between ngos interventions and food security among small scale farmers in chepareria division. This means that to realize food security among small scale farmers in chepareria division, combating climate change, increase the size of land holding under cropland, tenure systems in place and ngos interventions are key. The study recommends that the government should come up with policies to guide all the small-scale farmers in kenya on how they can adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change. Small-scale farmers should embrace diversification to spread the risk and at the same time stop further fragmentation of the land or amalgamate and practice sustainable agriculture land management practices for increased crop production and productivity. Proper land tenure system should be adopted to enhance production by the community of chepareria with the support of the government agencies, institution and ngos like fao. Small scale farmers should adopt agropastoral way of farming and embrace sustainable agricultural land management practices while the ngos should upgrade their interventions in the area as their activities have positively influenced food security among small scale farmers.