The role of agriculture in poverty escapes in Kenya – Developing a capabilities approach in the context of climate change
利用肯尼亚农村的面板调查和定性材料，研究了自2000年以来农业和耕作实践如何帮助持续脱贫，发现农业仍是经济和社会福祉的关键，但资产积累与脱贫关系模糊，农户难以将农业转化为利润，气候变化加剧了困难。
Rural poverty poses a significant developmental challenge in Kenya. Using a panel survey in rural Kenya and qualitative material from focus groups and life history interviews from the regions of Makueni and Vihiga, we investigate the changing role of how agriculture and farming practices have contributed to sustained escapes from poverty since 2000. In this study we analyse environmental, social and personal structures that facilitate conversion of agricultural strategies that enable poverty escapes in the context of climate change. Our study identifies that agriculture still forms an essential aspect of Kenyan households’ economic and social wellbeing. However, the study results indicate that links between accumulation of assets and poverty escapes are ambiguous, poor households find it problematic to convert agricultural strategies into a profit, and climate change shocks further exasperate these difficulties. We argue that constraints in conversion structures, such as limited infrastructure, and in conversion processes such as ongoing difficulties in land procurement and inheritance, unsustainable farming practices and continued lack of knowledge on climate-smart agriculture affect not only poverty escapes, but also the ability to adapt to and mitigate against environmental shocks. Development of conversion processes to improve existing conversion structures should be at the core of public interventions that seek to sustainably reduce poverty amidst climate change in rural Kenya.