Variability of On-Farm Food Plant Diversity and Its Contribution to Food Security: A Case Study of Smallholder Farming Households in Western Kenya

Abstract

Traditional mixed agroforestry farms are regarded as sustainable agroecological systems contributing to agrobiodiversity conservation and household food and nutrition security in subSaharan Africa. However, in Kenya little is known on the level of agrobiodiversity of these mixed farms and its contribution to food and nutrition security. A case study was conducted to assess food plant and livestock diversity and to identify the biophysical and socio-economic factors influencing food plant diversity in 30 smallholder farms in Western Kenya. The survey identified six livestock species and 59 food plant species. Higher food plant species richness was found on farms managed by wealthier households and older household heads. However, households with high on-farm food plant richness and diversity were not more food secure than Downloaded by [University of Otago] at 00:44 28 July 2015A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 2 households managing species-poor farms. The non-significant relationship between food security and agrobiodiversity during the time of this case study may have resulted from the fact that the surveyed 30 families sourced significant parts of their food through markets and did not fully depend on their farms for food, particularly for spices/condiments, fruits and animal source foods. Therefore, we suggest a diversification of farms through livestock and fruit tree farming for improving dietary diversity and incomes of the surveyed households.

Agrobiodiversity conservation enhances food security in subsistence-based farming systems of Eastern Kenya

“…Temperatures are moderate ranging from 12 to 26 °C. Embu soils are sandy clay in nature characterized by low exchangeable ions and have low percentage nitrogen content (% N) of 0.23 % [4]. Majority of the households are smallholder farmers with small units of crops and livestock.…”

“…Smallholder farmers in most areas such as Eastern Kenya highly depend on crop diversity and livestock enterprises due to the limitation of farm sizes [4]. Embu and Tharaka-Nithi counties are close to the slopes of Mt.…”

Eucalyptus sp. at the Intersection of Environment and Culture in Kenya

“…Agrobiodiversity factors into social prestige. Farmers with more trees and crops tend to be wealthier and older (but not necessarily have larger farms), and wild foods tend to have low status (Ng'endo et al 2015). However, Ng'endo et al (2015) and Connelly and Chaiken (2000) found that agrobiodiversity was no guarantee of food or financial security.…”

“…As a main food staple in Kenya, maize was a crop that farmers would have liked to plant if it could grow well alongside Eucalyptus sp. (Ng'endo et al 2015).…”

Plantas alimentícias e paisagens: uso e conservação no Sertão do Ubatumirim, Ubatuba, Brasil

“…Associadas a locais como "hotspots" (Myers et al, 2000), estão populações tradicionais que, historicamente, têm estabelecido uma relação íntima de interação com o meio natural, a partir da qual é gerado um tipo de conhecimento como resultado de sua adaptação ao ecossistema. Baseado nesse conhecimento local, elas praticam uma forma de agricultura caracterizada por apresentar elevada diversidade inter e intra específica de plantas cultivadas (Peroni & Martins, 2000;Bernholt et al, 2009;Brussaard et al, 2010;Ratnadass et al, 2012;Ng'endo et al, 2015;Shen et al, 2017). Dessa forma, essas populações criam formas de manejo de áreas na qual tais práticas de manejo estão profundamente ligadas à continuidade dos processos naturais do meio (Saxena et al, 2016), considerado, assim, um sistema socioecológico 1 .…”