By Henry Mang’eni
Joseph Chiwai, 72, has lived a lifetime witnessing his once-thriving homeland turn into a barren landscape. From fertile soils and lush vegetation to erratic rainfall and bare fields, Joseph tells how his generation has experienced the harsh realities of climate change in Kauma in Kilifi South
“I actually didn’t see my grandfather ever farming, but my father and uncles farmed in my childhood and I helped them, meaning I have been farming all my life,” Joseph begins. However, the rhythms of nature he grew up with have changed drastically.
“There are a lot of changes in the weather patterns that we experience today compared to when I was growing up. The dry spells are so intense nowadays compared to those days. For instance, look at this year 2024—we have had almost no rain for the whole year; things have really changed,” he said.
“As far as I can remember, in the late ’70s to early ’80s is when the rains began to be erratic, but in the ’90s to 2020s, things are becoming worse,” said Joseph.
According to a 2022 report from the Kenya Meteorological Department, annual rainfall in the Coast Province has dropped by an average of 20 per cent since the 1980s. Rains, once predictable, now arrive late or fail entirely, leaving farmers struggling to cope.
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“In the past, green vegetation could be seen throughout the year. Crops like maize, cassava, millet, sorghum, and cotton thrived. I can give you an example: at Kiwandani, just within Kilifi Town, there used to be a British farmer called Lilly White who had a lot of cotton planted there and also established a cashew nut plantation,” said Joseph. But land that once supported thriving agriculture has now turned barren
‘The soils were fertile because of the vegetation cover, which was intact. The rivers were flowing with water, but these days, most rivers are seasonal or completely dried out.” Now, fields with no grass cover are increasingly common, contrasting powerfully with his childhood landscape.
“Back then, fruit trees like mangoes kept growing everywhere. Oranges, lemons, and guavas were richly available and did very well, including coconuts. In the past, we only had the tall coconut varieties that took long to mature. We also planted coconuts that were pushed to our shores by ocean currents.”
However, agricultural practices have also changed over the years, sometimes unfavourably:
“The old men are projecting a gap in the coconut sector due to a period when the young people didn’t bother to plant coconuts. They felt that the crop takes too long to mature. Even as scientists have introduced the hybrid variety, there is still the challenge of caring for them, as some claim they require a lot of water.”
Joseph points to a frequent disregard for water needs, with modern crops like sukuma wiki (kale), cabbage, and spinach replacing many indigenous vegetables, but often demanding more water – which remains scarce.
“You have seen the Arabuko Sokoke forest. It looks green with a diversity of indigenous trees like Mbambakofi (Magnolia tree) and Mpingo (African blackwood). In the 1960s, almost all of Kilifi was like that forest, with a variety of trees distributed everywhere. But nowadays, we cannot see these trees, mostly due to the challenge of charcoal burning, felling trees for timber, and climate change.”
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reports that coastal forests in Kenya have shrunk by over 70 per cent in the past five decades, with the loss of trees such as Mpingo that were once abundant contributing to worsening soil erosion.
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“In recent years, there are trees that have been introduced, that were not there in the past and they include gravellea, jatropha, pine, ’Mzungi’ Moringa, and cypress.”
Even so, satellite photos and research by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that Kilifi’s specific forest cover has declined by over 60 per cent since 1980,
“The way I see it, our soils are not changing for the better because of the reduced production that we have experienced,” Joseph concludes.
For Joseph and his generation, the hope remains that future generations may, once again, see Kilifi flourish as it once did.