| dc.description.abstract | Kakamega County is a rich agricultural area where various food and cash crops are grown. However, changes in climate have an impact on crop production, and hence affect food security especially among small scale crop farmers. On the basis of this scenario, this study sought to explore the existence and determine the characteristics of climate variability/change, assess its impact on small scale farmer's crop production and adaptation strategies. The first specific objective was to analyze patterns and trends of climatic elements in the county between the period of 1968 to 2014, secondly analyze the main subsistence crop production by small scale farmers for the period of between 1990 to 2014, assess coping strategies to climate change by small scale crop farmers and lastly establish any constraints faced by the farmers in adapting to the changing climate. The scope of the study was mainly climatic trends (rainfall and temperature and how they have changed over a period of time and small scale crop production mainly for maize and beans. This study made use of stratified sampling to select households; this was done according to the various agro ecological zones of the county out of which 375 households were selected randomly. Data from both primary and secondary sources were used. The latter included data collected from meteorological stations and was mainly rainfall for a period of 46 years and temperature data for a period of 14 years ( 1990-2014) because of limited data and this was to establish any existence• and characteristics of climate variability/change in the study area. Primary data sources included Focal Group Discussions (FGDs), questionnaires and interview schedules administered to farmers to gain information on trends on crop production and adaptation strategies to climate change if any and farmers perceptions to issues of climate change. Regression analysis was used in the study to establish the rainfall and temperature trends which showed the correlation between time in years and changes in temperature and rainfall amounts. Results indicate that the rainfall amounts were having a negative trend of 3mm per annum, a sign of reduction over time, whereas temperatures had a positive trend of 0.04 ° C on yearly basis indicating an increase over time. Crop production had a declining trend whereby the number of bags per hectare had dropped from an average of 25 bags of maize per hectare to 20 bags, while the beans had declined from 15 bags to l O bags per hectare over the period of study. Despite these changes in climate, small scale farmers had put in practice some adaptation strategies to cope with the changing trends, these include, involvement in off farm activities, changing from purely crop farming to livestock or integrated farming, soil conservation measures ,crop diversification and even growing of drought tolerant crops such millet and sorghum. This notwithstanding small scale farmers are faced with many challenges/ constraints in trying to implement these strategies which include lack of information, lack of finances and even lack of expertise to implement some of the strategies. In conclusion the climate has been changing in this county over this period of time and therefore there is need to embrace climate change adaptation strategies to counteract this scenario without which would lead to food insecurity in the area and ultimately high levels of poverty. The study recommends that capacity building be an integral component of any climate change adaptation strategy due to existing uncertainties in climate models especially at local and national levels. | en_US |