Influence of Water Availability on Food Crop Production in Semi-Arid Areas in Kibwezi District, Makueni County, Kenya

Abstract

Ecosystems provide essential services like water regulation and other processes which sustain and fulfill human life by directly or indirectly supporting humans‟ survival and quality of life. However, there is insufficient knowledge on the influence of water availability as an ecosystem service on food crop production as a livelihood insemiarid areas Kenya. The objective of this study was to establish the influence of water availability on food crop production as a livelihood in semi-arid areas in Kibwezi district. A Cross-sectional descriptive research design involving use of purposive and simple random sampling was adopted. Primary data was obtained using structured questionnaires to interview a minimum of 384 house hold heads from a study population of 248,704. The results indicated that 70.3% accessed rainwater, 79.2% obtained water from boreholes, and 23.4% from streams, 29.7 % accessed tap water, while only 2.6 % accessed water from springs. Further, 76.6% of the households practiced irrigation out of which 67.3% used more than 500 liters of water. Crops grown under irrigation include maize, spinach, kales, Asian vegetables, fruits, babycorns, tomatoes and onions. Least squares regression analysis was employed to determine the influence of water availability on food crop yields. The results showed that 67.2% of the variation in total rainfed crop yields in Kgs was explained by total monthly rainfall amounts for short rains (r 2 = 0.672, p< .01) while 51.9% of variation in total irrigated crop yields in Kgs was explained by total amount of water used for irrigation in one season (r 2 =0.519, p<.01). The study concluded that water availability …