Gender matters - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 85

sell, household revenues invariably shrink, while reliance on cash to ensure
basic livelihood needs, like staple foods, fodder, water and fuel wood, grows
(Gabrielsson et al. 2013).
Life-history interviews with 17 elderly farmers from across the four
communities also indicate a rise in the spread of climate-related pests, vectors
and pathogens, in turn leading to higher incidence of various crop diseases
as well as malaria, cholera, dengue fever and typhoid throughout the year, a
trend identified in other areas of East Africa as well (Wandiga 2006; Githeko
2009). According to the seasonal calendar exercises conducted for this study,
the costs of these recurring incidences of climate-associated diseases are many:
higher expenditures for healthcare; increased work burdens for women; loss
of anticipated non-farm incomes; and the added costs of hiring agricultural
labour when manpower is reduced or lost. Importantly, it is the convergence
of these incremental climate-induced stressors in time and space that has the
most critical effects on farmers' livelihoods. Continued illness, mismanaged
crops and ensuing food insecurity bring destructive effects to the human-
environment system, creating and maintaining a state of 'chronic livelihood
stress' (Gabrielsson et al. 2013: 152).
Farmers' resources and strategies to respond to climate risks
Working the land, for both men and women, entails greater risks and unpredictability
today than in the past (Eriksen et al. 2005; Smucker and Wisner 2008; Andersson
and Gabrielsson 2012). To optimize yields and market prices through timely
planting, harvesting and labour inputs, farmers must utilize their existing, albeit
already limited, resources more intensively (Andersson and Gabrielsson 2012).
Farmers have several resources available. First, their own able-bodiedness (Cleaver
2005), which enables or disables individuals and households to engage in farming
and non-farming. Second, the land they can farm, which enables or disables the
production of sufficient amounts of food for home consumption and sales. Third,
the cash they may earn, which enables or disables individuals and/or households
to secure a buffer to ensure that basic livelihood needs can be met. Finally, access
to communities of practices (Wenger 1998), which enables or disables the pooling
of time and labour as well as the sharing of resources and tools within and between
individuals, households and communities.
In the LVB, and elsewhere across East Africa, these resources may, at least in
theory, be manifested through four major livelihood strategies: extensification,
intensification, diversification and migration (Ellis 2000). In practice however,
migration is no longer as attractive as it used to be, as the competition for unskilled
work has increased between rural dwellers and the urban poor (Bryceson 2002a;
Cleaver 2005; Ellis and Freeman 2005). Moreover, increased urbanization and
price inflation in cities has rendered migratory work less profitable, making
remittances an unreliable source of income for rural households (Gabrielsson
2012).