Baseline Study of Striga Control using IR Maize in Western Kenya

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Figure 5.2b. Frequency of food shortages in western Kenya (months)Number of months6543210NyanzaWesternProvince5.4.2 Causes of food shortagesRespondents ranked Striga infestation and drought as the foremost causes of food shortages,this is followed by low soil fertility, land shortage, pest infestation and conflict (Table 5.5).There was no discrepancy in the ranks provided to the possible causes of food shortages byboth male-headed and female-headed households.Table 5.5. Rank of major causes of food shortages in western KenyaNyanzaWesternStriga infestation 1st 1 stDrought 1st 3 rdPest infestation 5th 6 thLow soil fertility 2nd 2 ndLand shortage 3rd 4 thLabour shortage 4th 5 thConflict 7th 7 thN = Number of respondents5.4.3 Strategies to mitigate food shortagesHouseholds evolve coping strategies to grapple with risk and uncertainty as well as to putundesirable situations under control. Different strategies employed by the households totackle food shortages are shown in Table 5.6. Results obtained pointed to the fact thathouseholds relied on petty trading, short-term off-farm employment, informal safety nets(such as remittances) and disposal of household assets. Most of them said that these strategieswere not effective.Table 5.6. Strategies to mitigate food shortagesNyanzaWesternN 402 400Managing to survive on little food (%) 4.2 2.3Formal credit (%) 2 3.8Informal credit (%) 8.2 19.0Formal safety net (%) 10 9.3Informal safety net (%) 41 33.0Off-farm wage employment (%) 43.5 41.3Sell land/other assets (%) 21.9 1.8Business/petty trading (%) 61.7 38.5N = Number of respondents5.5 Anthropometric measurements on vulnerable groups5.5.1 Anthropometric information on childrenA number of anthropometric measurements are useful for the assessment of the quality oflife/ livelihoods of a group of people. Most common indicators for the assessment of the38
nutritional status of children are Z-scores on weight-for-height (wasting) or ZWFH, weightfor-age(underweight) or ZWFA, and height-for-age (stunting) or ZHFA. Thesemeasurements were made for children aged six years old and below in the two provinces. TheZ values used in the classification of children were as follows: Z > –1.00 is normal; –1.00>Z> –2.00 is mild malnutrition; –2.00 >Z> –3.00 is moderate malnutrition and; Z < –3.00 issevere malnutrition.There were a total of 767 children aged six years old and below (46.7% were male). Overall,the nutritional status of children falls under the normal category for the three Z scores.However, two indices fall under mild malnutrition on ZWFA for male-headed households inWestern province and for ZHFA for male-headed households in Nyanza province andfemale-headed households in Western province (Table 5.7).Table 5.7. Anthropometric indices on childrenZ scoreMale Headed HouseholdsFemale Headed HouseholdsAll Nyanza Western All Nyanza WesternWeight-for-height –0.02 (628) 0.3 (276) -0.2 (352) 0.5 (91) -0.7 (50) 1.8 (41)Weight-for-age –0.8 (661) –0.5 (292) –1.1 (369) –0.3 (97) -0.7 (53) 0.1 (44)Height-for-age 1.4 (648) –1.1 (285) 1.6 (363) -0.9 (94) 0.2 (51) -2.3 (43)Figures in brackets indicate number of valid entries in analysisHowever, the above averages hide many differences. For Nyanza, the proportion of childrenexperiencing wasting was as high as 30% (Table 5.8). Almost 50% of children wereunderweight as a consequence of short-time exposure to food insecurity. Also a large number(48%) of children were stunted. Children were suffering not only from a scarcity of food buttheir long-term development was also affected by the chronic exposure to food shortages.This situation of generalised malnutrition of children in regions not affected by civil conflictsis frightening.Table 5.8. Nutritional status of children in Nyanza provinceWeight-for-height Weight-for-age Height-for-ageN 327 346 338Normal (%) 70.3 50.6 52.1Mild malnutrition (%) 11.9 18.5 18.9Moderate malnutrition (%) 7.0 10.4 10.7Severe malnutrition (%) 10.7 20.5 17.8N = Number of childrenA similar analysis done for Western province shows 35% of children suffer from wasting;59% are underweight; and 58% are stunted (Table 5.9). The comparison of the nutritionalstatus of children also shows that food insecurity is higher in Nyanza for wasting and inWestern for underweight and stunting. The proportion of children who experience a severemalnutrition was higher in Western compared to Nyanza.Table 5.9. Nutritional status of children in Western provinceWeight-for-height Weight-for-age Height-for-ageN 404 413 408Normal (%) 65.1 40.9 41.7Mild malnutrition (%) 13.1 16.5 17.2Moderate malnutrition (%) 7.7 15.5 15.7Severe malnutrition (%) 14.1 27.1 25.5N = Number of children39
Page 5 and 6: Acronyms and AbbreviationsAATF Afri
Page 7: control technologies. Promoting bot
Page 10 and 11: Figure 1.1. GIS maps showing sample
Page 12 and 13: ln(maizeoutput ) = β + β ln(Land
Page 15 and 16: Chapter 2Socioeconomic Characterist
Page 17 and 18: Figure 2.2. Major forms of financia
Page 19 and 20: Another interesting parameter on hu
Page 21 and 22: Chapter 3Crop Production and Produc
Page 23 and 24: Table 3.3. Seed use in NyanzaLong r
Page 25 and 26: Table 3.5. Crop productivity (kg/ha
Page 27 and 28: Chapter 4Striga and Striga Control
Page 29 and 30: N 402 400Uprooting (%) 82.3 86.0Bur
Page 31 and 32: of seed (Table 4.9). For the sustai
Page 33 and 34: Table 5.2. Household income in both
Page 35 and 36: Table 5.3. Logit model estimates of
Page 37: household members were used for thi
Page 41 and 42: Chapter 6Empirical Analysis of Maiz
Page 43 and 44: Land × Labour β 12-0.011 -0.385La
Page 45 and 46: 50-75 45 53 54 5475-100 29 18 25 24
Page 47 and 48: Table 7.1. Types of development pro
Page 49 and 50: Chapter 8Conclusions and Recommenda
Page 51 and 52: promise for unlocking the maize pro
Page 53: Ray SC. 1985. Measurement and test

Baseline Study of Striga Control using IR Maize in Western Kenya

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