Economic impacts of climate change on livestock and crop returns in the coastal region of Kenya

Abstract

Abstract. Wachira PW, Ndunda E, Sitati N. 2021. Economic impacts of climate change on livestock and crop returns in the coastal region of Kenya. Indo Pac J Ocean Life 5: 74-82. The objectives were to assess which impact climate change has on crop net revenue, to evaluate the impact of climate change on livestock net revenue, and to estimate the impact of climate change on combined net revenue. The study was conducted in all six counties in coastal area of Kenya, i.e.: Kwale, Lamu, Tana River, Mombasa, Kilifi, and Taita Taveta. A sum of 631 respondents was interviewed to obtain the cross-sectional survey data. The secondary data on precipitation, temperature, and evaporation for 40 years was obtained from Kenya Meteorological Department. The data was analyzed using the Ricardian model; the linear and quadratic effects of climate change on crops, livestock net revenue, and the combination were calculated. The study shows that climate change significantly (p<0.05) affects net revenues from livestock, crops, and a combination of livestock and crops. Other socio-economic variables that were found to also significantly (p<0.05) affect net revenue from crops, livestock, and a combination of crops and livestock were access to media, credit services access, farmer-to-farmer extension services, size of land owned, climate change awareness, education level, age, and gender of the household head. The results show a non-linear relationship between climate variables and net revenues from crops, livestock, and agriculture. This study concludes that a unit increase in precipitation increases crop revenues; at the same time, a unit increase in mean annual temperature significantly reduces crop and total farm income. The marginal effect of increasing a unit in precipitation is a reduction of livestock net revenue. An increase in livestock production revenue from a unit temperature increase (linear) can be attributed to the livestock breeds in the coastal region inherent to dry weather. However, results show that increasing quadratic temperature would reduce net livestock revenue. This study recommends enhancing awareness of climate change, crop, livestock, and combined agriculture adaptation strategies. Also important is access to credit facilities that help farmers greatly to acquire the necessary inputs for crop production in time. Further, training groups of farmers would be appropriate in the study area since the trained farmers preferably transfer the learned technologies to others through farmer-to-farmer extension services. Media access should be enhanced whereby information on appropriate livestock and crop production technologies may be communicated to farmers.