Corona Crisis hits Smallholder Farmers in Kenya: SRF 1 Report
Radio SRF 1, the Swiss national radio station, reported about an ISTP research project, which shows that not only urban residents in poorer regions of the world suffer from the Corona crisis.
Because of the lockdown, households in Western Kenya are struggling to buy and also sell food, as most local markets are closed. This affects them twofold, because they have less nutrition and also less income. Already before the corona virus hit the rural region, around 40 percent of the households were having troubles with food security. After the lockdown, the number rose to 48 percent.
"This was also a great surprise to our research team. Considering that many markets are currently closed, one major problem is that households find it specifically difficult to buy and sell food."Dr. Michael Brander, ETH Zurich
This observation struck the research team which runs a field experiment in the region. Not only do the people have less meals available, also the size of the meals decreased. The researchers carried out SMS surveys and aim at finding out how better crop storage may improve food security and help smallholder farmers coping with sudden food system shocks.
The research team includes ISTP's Michael Brander, Matthias Huss and Thomas Bernauer, as well as researchers from the University of Zurich (Ulrike Ehlert) and Kenya-based research institute icipe (Menale Kassie).
- For the full radio report (available in German), please check the external pageSRF 1 homepage.
- For further information on the overall project, please visit the Impacts of Improved on-Farm Storage webpage.