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Assessing changes in climate suitability and yields of maize and sorghum crops over Kenya in the twenty-first century

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Abstract

Climate change has and will continue to affect food security in different dimensions. This study aims at comparing current and future maize and sorghum climate suitability and yield using five state-of-art climate models in the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP8.5) in Couple Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The study considered 1970–2000 as the baseline and 2040–2060 (the 2050s) and 2061–2080 (2070s) as the projection periods. The mechanist FAO Eco-crop model and statistical crop model were used. The results show that rainfall and temperature are projected to increase by 2050s and 2070s with certain (uncertainty) in temperature (rainfall) projection.

The central and western highlands are the optimum suitable zones for maize. Gradual reduction of maize suitable zone is anticipated leading to a yield loss of 10.8% (23.7%) by 2050s (2070s). The sorghum climate suitable areas are expected to increase in the future leading to a yield gain of 114% (80.7%) by 2050s (2070s) from the baseline yield. Currently, temperature creates more uncertainties in crop yield than rainfall. The findings of this research enlighten the policymakers and farmers on the probable susceptibilities of the agricultural system in future climate and the viable strategic measures to curb food insecurity over the country.

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Data availability

The model data has been made publicly available by WRCP while the station data is available upon request from Kenya Meteorological Department.

Code availability

The codes are available upon request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The first author is grateful to Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST), China, for sponsoring her Ph.D. study and for creating a conducive environment that fosters research.

Funding

This work was funded by the Nation Basic Research Program of China (2018YFC1507704) and NSFC grant (41730961 and 41575083).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Collaborative Innovation Center On Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters/Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Lucia Mumo, Jinhua Yu & Moses Ojara

  2. College of Atmospheric Science, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, Jiangsu, China

    Lucia Mumo, Jinhua Yu & Moses Ojara

  3. South Eastern University of Kenya, P.O. Box 170-90200, Kitui, Nairobi, Kenya

    Lucia Mumo & Noah Kerandi

  4. Uganda National Meteorological Authority, Plot 21, 28 Port Bell Rd, Kampala, Uganda

    Moses Ojara

  5. University of Nairobi, P.O. Box 30197-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

    Cromwel Lukorito

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  1. Lucia Mumo
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  2. Jinhua Yu
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  3. Moses Ojara
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  4. Cromwel Lukorito
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  5. Noah Kerandi
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Contributions

Paper conceptualization: Lucia Mumo, and Moses Ojara; methodology: Moses Ojara; formal analysis: Lucia Mumo: resources: Yu Jinhua and Noah Kerandi; writing original draft and preparation: Lucia Mumo, Cromwel Lukorito, and Moses Ojara; writing review and manuscript editing: Cromwel Lukorito, and Noah Kerandi; supervision: Yu Jinhua; funding acquisition: Yu Jinhua.

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Correspondence to Lucia Mumo.

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Mumo, L., Yu, J., Ojara, M. et al. Assessing changes in climate suitability and yields of maize and sorghum crops over Kenya in the twenty-first century. Theor Appl Climatol 146, 381–394 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03718-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03718-6

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