Blog Chuka University supports climate-resilient farming in Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya
By Alex Nduah, Adams Kwaw, Dr. Grace Abucheli
Extreme weather events in Kenya - such as prolonged drought and floods - have led to significant livestock deaths and crop failures, jeopardizing the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and rural communities. To promote sustainable agricultural development and enhance the resilience of rural communities to climate change impacts in agriculture,Chuka University, a public university in Tharaka Nithi County, some 200 miles from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, under faculty of Agriculture, Department of Plant Sciences at Chuka University made the teaching of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) a priority, and partnered with Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) to build its capacity to teach new curricula to students and deliver demonstrations and trainings in the county that adhere to the highest environmental and social safeguarding standards.
This new collaboration comes as AICCRA forges partnerships with four other universities in Kenya—Murang’a University of Technology, Taita Taveta, Laikipia, and Chuka Universities—who have all designed and implemented climate-smart curricula for agricultural extension workers, with capacity building and technical assistance from AICCRA scientists.
AICCRA’s role in these partnerships was to connect these universities with the science and innovation of CGIAR, the world’s largest publicly funded research partnership for food security.
The partnership is therefore building foundational knowledge and skills to manage climate risk in agriculture in the tertiary and higher education sector in Kenya, training the next generation of agriculture leaders, and in turn, potentially millions of Kenyan smallholder farmers.
The road that led to this AICCRA-Chuka University partnership began with an extensive stakeholder consultation with the Tharaka Nithi County government, the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, farmer cooperative groups, the private sector, and other farmer groups.
AICCRA assessed the needs of smallholder farmers in Tharaka Nithi County and prioritized which validated climate-smart innovations and technologies that were compelling and suitable solutions for that context.
Chuka University then undertook the most extensive in-person demonstration of CSA by the university in Tharaka Nithi County to 1,000 farmers from ten farmer groups.
