The UN’s three Rome based agencies (RBA's) have joined together in the ''Kenya Cereal Enhancement Programme- Climate Resilient Agricultural Livelihoods Window (KCEP-CRAL)''. Working together they want to reduce rural poverty and food insecurity among smallholder farmers by developing their economic potential.
The RBA's will be working together, supporting smallholder farmers in specific areas of the country. Through the adoption of value-added agricultural practices they hope to increase productivity and profitability of maize, millet, sorghum and associated pulses.
Step One - from food insecurity to subsistence farming, with good agricultural practices and conservation agriculture
In this first phase, the agencies, will support 60,000 food-insecure farming households to build up their productive assets. They will also build farmers’ capacities to reach subsistence levels of agricultural production, by applying Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Conservation Agriculture (CA).
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will complement the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) technical advice with financing, which will improve extension services in the target counties, focusing on natural resource management (NRM) and adaptation to climate change.
Step two – Graduating to commercial farming with GAP, CA and resilience to climate change
In the second phase, the RBA's will reach out to 100,000 smallholder farmers (including farmers that graduated from the first phase) to advance them to commercial farming. This will be done whilst building their resilience to climate change. Support will target local government/communities for participatory development and implementation of community-based NRM and resilience plans.
Each RBA will have a specific focus
The World Food Programme (WFP) will collaborate on the aspects of the programme that relate to market access. Improving access to markets for smallholders has far reaching implications. It helps alleviate the frequent droughts they experience. It enhances crop and livestock production.
FAO will implement climate smart agriculture. Using GAP and CA they will enable farmers to increase their production and successfully market their surplus harvests.
IFAD will support farmers who have reached household subsistence level to graduate to market-oriented farming for value chains with market potential-retaining diversified livelihoods from WFP's supported strategy.
From its Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP), IFAD will finance activities under the KCEP-CRAL that support improved NRM and resilience to climate change at all levels. ASAP promotes soil and water conservation approaches to reduce vulnerability to climate change, that is currently plaguing farmers and putting pressure on natural resources.