STM Article Repository

Sugarcane is an important economic crop in Kenya. The sugar industry supports directly and indirectly over 8 million Kenyans and is a source of income to over 294,000 small scale farmers and 7,500 employees. Sugarcane cultivation in Kenya mostly is rainfed and climate change is anticipated to influence its production. The study statistically analysed both the Normalized Rainfall Index (NRI) and Vulnerability of sugarcane production to climate change in Mumias sugar zone. This was based on rainfall records over a 30-year period from 1984-2014. The results of the various statistical tests showed that the coefficients of skewness and kurtosis for the rainfall series for the period were not normally distributed at 95% confidence level. The five-year and ten-year running means for annual rainfall series during these periods both showed periods below and above the long-term mean (2053.3 mm) from 1984-2014 with steady increases above the mean from 1984 to 1990 for five year and from 2004 to 2014 for ten- year running means respectively. Sugarcane yield dropped drastically during the period 1994-2002. Furthermore from 2003 to 2014, there was a significant drop in sugarcane yield. The Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation coefficient (r) was used to show any significant relationship between the annual rainfall totals and sugarcane yields from 1994 to 2014 and this revealed that the coefficient was positive but not perfectly correlated (r = 0.097). Assessment of outcome vulnerability using the rainfall totals from 1984 to 2014 showed that sugarcane was vulnerable to climate change (drought and flooding). This study therefore concludes that in Mumias, the relationship between rainfall and cane yield was positive but not perfectly correlated and cane was vulnerable to climate change.