Background: Climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa has had a negative impact on agricultural production leading to food insecurity. Climate-smart agricultural (CSA) practices have the potential to reverse this trend because of its triple potential benefits of improved productivity and high income, reduction or removal of greenhouse gases and improved household food security. Hence, we empirically find the determinants of choice and the effect of CSAs on household food security among smallholder farmers in Kenya. Methods: Primary data were collected in Teso North Sub-county, Busia County of Kenya, among smallholder farmers. CSA practices used by farmers were grouped by principal component analysis and linked to food security by multinomial endogenous switching regression model. Results: With the application of principal component analysis, we clustered the CSA practices into 4 components: crop management, field management, farm risk reduction and soil management practices. We find that the greatest effect of CSA adoption by smallholder farmers on food security is when they use a larger package that contains all the four categories of practices. Adopters of this package were 56.83% more food secure in terms of HFCS and 25.44% in terms of HDDS. This package mitigates upon the impacts of climate change as well as enhancing nutrient availability in the soils for higher productivity. Further, adoption of this package was positively influenced by gender of the household head, farm size and value of productive farm assets. Conclusions: CSAs have the potential to alleviate food insecurity among smallholder farmers if used in combinations and to a larger extend. To enhance adoption, land fragmentation should be discouraged through civic education and provision of alternative income-generating activities for farmers to benefit when practiced on relatively bigger land. Farmers should be sensitized on the need to invest in farm productive assets in order to absorb the risks of climate change while enhancing adoption of CSA practices.

Introduction: Lake Naivasha watershed is recognized for its contribution to Kenya's national gross domestic product from the export of horticultural products. Commercial horticultural investment downstream depends mainly on the Lake's water. The fresh water lake lacks surface outflow, and its recharge depends on river Malewa flowing from upper catchment in Aberdare ranges. However, unsustainable land use practices in the upper catchment has led to increasing sediment loading and pollution in river Malewa which affects water quality in the Lake downstream. Payment for Environmental Services (PES) scheme has been initiated as an alternative incentive approach to motivate upstream smallholder farmers adopt sustainable land use practices for conservation of watershed services. This paper analyzes willingness to accept pay (WTA) as proxy economic measure of environmental service (ES) value and determines socio-economic factors influencing farmers WTA for watershed conservation. We analyzed the WTA and characterized WTA underlying socio-economic determinants in two PES intervention sites in Kenya. Methods: The objective of this study was to estimate WTA and determine socio-economic factors influencing WTA. Semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 200 PES farmers through face-to-face interview. We applied contingent valuation (CV) and logistic regression for data analyses to elicit farmer's WTA estimates to implement PES farm practices and determine socio-economic factors influencing WTA, respectively.

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In Uasin Gishu County the rapidly declining household land sizes are a pre-requisite to increased intensification in dairy production. Although the three dairy production pathways are used by farmers in the County, it has not been established which one of them would be comparatively competitive to enhance commercialization process and lead to attractive returns to smallholders investing in milk production. The objective of this paper was to determine the economic efficiency of smallholder milk production under different intensification methods. A sample size of 246 smallholder dairy farmers was selected in Uasin Gishu County using stratified random sampling method. Using both primary and secondary data, economic efficiencies were evaluated utilizing Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function. The result of the analysis indicate that presence of technical inefficiencies had effects in milk production as depicted by the significant estimated gamma coefficient of each model, the generalized likelihood ratio test and the predicted economic efficiencies within the dairy farms. Technical efficiency increased with the level of intensification of milk production with open grazing, semi-zero grazing and zero grazing recording a mean score of 0.54, 0.57 and 0.81 respectively. The maximum likelihood estimates for technical efficiency was an increasing function of cost of feeds and equipment in the three production systems with statistical significance of 5%.Market access condition the technical efficiency of milk production especially for this highly perishable product. Educational opportunities for farmers lead to initiative, innovation and improvements. There is need to increase the level of intensification in milk production to enhance technical efficiency.

Urban household food insecurity continues to be a major problem in many urban households of SubSaharan Africa. The ineffectiveness of policies addressing the problem has hinged in particular on the paucity of information about consumption patterns under changing economic conditions. Elasticities of food demand were estimated through the Linear Approximated Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS) and inferences about access to food were drawn. Shifts in consumption were evident when changes occurred in income, prices and household demography. As the urban poor are sensitive to variation in food prices and income, they should be cushioned against their negative effects in order for their access to food to be enhanced and hence their food security improved. Dairy and dairy products and wheat and wheat products were identified as subsidy carriers which would improve the nutrition of the urban poor. These results provide guidance for the design of food security and nutrition strategies and programs at the micro and macroeconomic levels.