Breaking barriers for climate-smart crop adoption in Kenya

From
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
Published on
05.04.19
Impact Area
Biodiversity, Food security, Poverty reduction, livelihoods & jobs
Funders
United States of America

A Nutrition Officer facilitating a nutrition education class in Makueni. Photo: ICRISAT

Paving the way for development of a reliable seed distribution model, a nationwide program has helped transform livelihoods of over 450 farm households

The central problem facing climate-smart crops such as sorghum, millets and pigeonpea is how to accelerate the adoption of improved varieties – getting more farmers to grow the improved varieties.

Evidence suggests that the area planted with these crops averages at 40% in Eastern Africa. Moreover, only 26% of this area is planted with varieties released in the last 10-15 years. Thus, the adoption of improved varieties of these crops has not met expectations. One reason for low adoption is the challenge of scaling up quality seed. To meet this challenge, in 2015 the ICRISAT-Kenya team, through the Feed the Future Kenya Accelerated Value Chain Development (AVCD) Program, designed and started implementing a strategy to address three drivers of adoption.