Adaptation to climate change to improve food safety and livelihoods among pastoral communities in Kenya (ADAPTiVE)

We aim to build research capacity and generate knowledge to support smallholder pastoral dairy farmers in adopting climate change adaptation strategies to improve food safety.

About the project

Our goal is to identify effective measures and pathways to enhance food safety, livelihoods, and gender equality in the face of climate change. 

Despite growing focus on the climate change-food security nexus, it remains understudied.

The project addresses four research gaps:

  1. Limited knowledge of how climate change affects food safety hazards in Kenya’s dairy value chain, actors’ awareness, and livelihood impacts.
  2. Lack of insight into smallholder women farmers’ awareness, constraints, and preferences for adaptation strategies for climate-induced food safety and spoilage.
  3. No evidence of adaptation strategies’ effects on food safety, spoilage, and livelihoods of smallholder female farmers in ASAL.
  4. Limited understanding of scalable climate-robust food safety practices in dairy.

Project information

Principal Investigator (PI)

Project period

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Organisation

Adaptation to climate change to improve food safety and livelihoods among pastoral communities in Kenya (ADAPTiVE) is part of: Section for Consumption, Bioethics and Governance

Work packages

Using Kenya as a case study, the project integrates social and natural sciences, supports four PhDs, and develops knowledge dissemination channels.

  • WP1: Identifies the most prevalent Food safety hazards along the Kenyan farm-to-fork dairy value chain, assesses how these are impacted by climate change, determines actors’ awareness of these impacts, analyses gendered barriers and explores actors’ climate change adaptation strategies.
  • WP2: Investigates factors determining food safety behaviour under climate change, and elicits female farmers’ preferences for alternative food safety-oriented climate change adaptation strategies.
  • WP3: Designs and tests specific climate change adaptation strategies for improved food safety, livelihoods under climate change.
  • WP4: Facilitates research capacity building, assesses stakeholders’ preferencs for climate change adapted dairy products, and develops scalable climate change adaptation strategies applicable to the Kenyan informal dairy sector in pastoral communities.
  • WP5: Manages the overall project activities.

PhD studentTitle of PhD project
Jacob KoomeFood Safety Challenges and Climate-Resilient Mitigation Strategies for Smallholder Dairy Farmers in Kenya’s Pastoral Communities
Wilfred OmondiClimate Change Adaptation, Willingness to Pay for Milk Safety, and Commercialization Outcomes among Pastoralists in Northern Kenya
Erkie Asmare BeyeneClimate Adaptation, Institutional Arrangements and Milk Safety among Pastoral Dairy Farmers in Northern Kenya 
Jacquelyne NnassunaAdapting Indigenous Milk Safety Practices : An Ethnographic study of the Rendille Pastoral Dairy farmers responding to climate change in Marsabit, Kenya

External researchers

Name
Title
Organisation
  • Nanna Roos
    Associate professor
    Department of Nutrition Exercise and Sports (University of Copenhagen)
  • John Kinyuru
    Senior lecturer
    Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology
  • Samuel Imathiu
    Senior lecturer
    Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology
  • Eucabeth Majiwa
    Lecturer
    Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology
  • Salome R. A. Bukachi
    Professor
    Institute of Anthropology, Gender and African Studies, University of Nairobi
  • Monicah Maichomo
    Principal Research Scientist
    KALRO, Veterinary Research Institute, University of Nairobi