Kenya: Small Scale Tea Growers Forced to Adapt to New Ways of Mitigating Climate Change
By Rosemary Onchari
Kisii — When taking a sip of tea, remember this is a beverage grounded in the rift valley, Central western and South Nyanza parts of Kenya which is consumed locally and internationally.
The tea sector is contributing significantly to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the direct and indirect employment to millions of Kenyans and foreign exchange. However, climate change poses a threat to tea production, by extension this has affected the livelihood of these farmers.
For many years, the weather in Kenya is generally sunny with the main rainy season starting from March to May and from November to December.
Adverse effects of climate change on agriculture have forced small scale tea farmers to develop innovations such as agroecology, planting of weather resistant tea and agroforestry to keep the quantity of their tea flow in the tea buying centers.
Agriculture sector is key to Kenya's economy contributing up to 65% of the export earning and contributing to 80% of earning to its population.
Tea production is already being disrupted by raising temperatures, increased viability of rainfall from year to year and during the year with extreme weather patterns such as intense droughts and floods leading to crop failures
Richard Machuka from ANC51 under Itumbe factory in Kisii says he started tea farming in the 1990s when he inherited his piece of land from his farther and ventured tea farming as a small-scale farmer to sustain him and his family.
Machuka says tea farming has been source of livelihood for him and his villagers, its though tea farming they have built descent houses, educated their children and fed their families for decades now.
However, Machuka says, with the unpredictable weather patterns and raise of temperatures, he is getting lower yield than what he has been getting before.
"This short rain season has affected tea in our village, we are getting heavy rains with hailstones which has destructed tea leaves leading to low production," says Machuka.
During the hailstones, Machuka says it takes them ap to about two months without getting tea and this has forced them to look for an alternative of practicing maize and vegetable growing during the rainy season.
He says the agricultural extension officers and KTDA are educating farmers on the seasons to use fertilizers in order to ensure productivity gets high, for instance, Machuka says they are advised not to use fertilizers during heavy rainfall because it will be swept away.
Orina Sawe Unit Manager at Itumbe tea factory says they are creating awareness for tea farmers on ways of mitigating climate change and at the same time sustain their productivity.
He says they have distributed about Ksh.30,000 tree seedlings from their tree nursery to their farmers and they have planted these trees for agroforestry and boost the forest cover.
"We currently have 100,000 tree nursery and supplied these indigenous trees which are environmentally friendly such as avacados, and graifelrure, we have cautioned our farmers not to plant eucalyptus trees especially along the river banks because they draw a lot of water," says Orina.
He says with collaboration with other factories from this region, they have developed a min hydropower station at Nyambunde water falls which is able to give two mega wats and this is one way of mitigating carbon emissions from our factories.
"We also have plans to install solar systems for our operations because this is green type of energy which is carbon free," says the unit manager.
Dr Abel Kenyoru one of the directors at Itumbe tea factory says farmers are counting loses during dry season since their tea is drying up.
He says they are working with the rainfall forest alliance in creating awareness on climate change mitigation and maintaining tea productivity.
"We are now working on climate resistant cultivars and giving our farmers seedlings will mitigate climate change, we have given out these seedlings to our farmers and they have planted this season," says Orina.
After the installation of the solar energy, we will be able to apply for carbon credits from the carbon markets and we are negotiating this with interested carbon credit markets.
Kisii County Government has commitment to invest in the carbon market by trading the carbon credits to encourage companies and individuals to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by either reducing carbon footprint.
Governor Simba Arati says his government is investing in the carbon credits whose demand is very high with little supply in African countries to invest in sustainable projects to offset carbon emissions.
The county is working to trade carbon credits out of farming technologies such as organic farming methods in production of agricultural products in the region.
"The carbon credit market will help our country fight the adverse effects of climate change which we are already experiencing such as the unpredictable weather patterns," says governor Arati.
The county climate change committee which he chairs is ready to work with initiatives such as the African carbon Markets Initiatives (ACMI) to trade its carbon credits in the international market.
the revenue generated from the sale of carbon credits can be used to support sustainable development initiatives in the county by empowering local farmers.
Arati said carbon credits will create millions of funds from companies and individual investors and this will enhance extension services and provide farmers with knowledge and skills concerning the modern farming technology to increase crop yields.
"We will sell the Carbon credits to help our country improve food security which is very important especially the vulnerability of climate change globally," said Arati.
The first carbon credits were generated in 2013 and were offered to the international voluntary markets.
This article originally appeared on Capital FM.