Nakuru — The government has called on citizens to engage in social-economic activities that are geared towards climate-change adaptation and resilience building.
This comes at a time parts of the country, especially the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) are still recovering from recent drought, said to have been the worst in the last 40 years.
Kitui County Commissioner, Erastus Mbui called on residents to venture into large scale livestock keeping, as opposed to depending on crop farming.
Mbui noted that farmers often plant crops like maize during the rainy season but the crop withers owing to lack of sufficient rains.
When crop withers, he added, pastoralists from neighbouring counties get a field day, grazing their livestock freely on farms within Kitui which sometimes is a threat to security because farmers guard the interests of their crops while pastoralists focus on livestock.
"Let us read between the lines and align our economic activities with climate change. Instead of planting crops, we can keep livestock as this can earn us better income to sustain our households' livelihoods," said Mbui.
He added that livestock sector is a major foreign exchange earner.
He was speaking at Ithookwe showground where hundreds of people had gathered for the maiden Resilience Knowledge Fair, organised by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Resilience Learning Activity (RLA).
Under the theme 'Strengthening community learning to increase adaptive capacity to shocks and stresses', the one-day event brought together more than 40 exhibitors drawn from development fields, (USAID and non-USAID-supported programs), finance, education, health, agriculture, environment, business among others.
It was graced by close to 500 participants, drawn from various sectors and areas within Kitui.
The county knowledge and learning fair provided an opportunity for all the exhibitors to showcase their work and a chance for the county leadership to interact with all partners and understand their work.
There were also opportunities for networking and business among attendants.
Mbui urged the youth to be innovative and engage in value addition and recycling by giving examples of an exhibitor who displayed body cream made from bee products and another who makes flower vases from recycled towels.
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Area Deputy Governor H.E Augustine Wambua urged development partners, private sector and government to educate communities on climate change and its effects.
"Armed with the knowledge, the communities will take relevant actions that are geared towards adaptation and resilience," said the Deputy Governor.
He called on communities to grow adoptive seeds which are able to withstand erratic weather patterns, and are resistant to pests and diseases.
Wambua announced that the county's department of agriculture would be giving gala goats to farmers as a way of supporting them in livestock production.
The Deputy governor, who was representing Governor Julius Malobe announced that there would be Agriculture Society of Kenya (ASK) show later in the month. This is will be the first ASK show for the county since 2017.
"I call upon all of you to attend and learn, so that you can improve on agricultural production and increase food security as well as income levels," said Wambua.
The event was also graced by USAID Kenya and East Africa Resilience Team Leader Earnest Njoroge who welcomed the joint efforts among communities, governments, private sector and development partners towards resilience building.
