Climate
change has been described as the most significant environmental threat of the
21st century with vast impact mostly on agriculture, altering food
production processes. As an important sector in the Kenyan economy, agriculture
continues to dominate other sectors despite its declining contribution to real
GDP. Given that the performance of the agricultural sector is determined by a
large number of factors, the need to articulate this study has become
imperative in view of the climate phenomenon. Therefore, the study examined the
determinants of agricultural production in Kenya under climate change with
specific interests in assessing the trend of climate variables and growth rate of
agricultural production within 1970-2012 periods;
estimating factors influencing agricultural production and deducing policy
implications from the findings. Data used were secondary and include value of
agricultural production, livestock, machines, fertilizer, agricultural land,
labour, annual precipitation and temperature over the study period. These were
obtained from databases hosted by the Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAOSTAT), the World Bank and United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Data analysis was done using trend analysis,
log quadratic trend equation and multiple regression model. The trend results
show that precipitation pattern traced out high amplitude decadal variability
with the forecast showing off a slightly upward trend. In temperature, the
inter-annual variability observed was wide with a forecast of a slight increase
up to 2020. In terms of growth analysis, the log quadratic equation indicates
that agricultural production posted a compound growth rate of 3.252% during the
period while production was determined by the quantum of labour, livestock,
agricultural land, precipitation and its squared term. The implication is that
precipitation both on the short and long run affected agricultural production.
It is recommended that ecosystem based and technologically driven adaptation
measures be taken to address climate change effects on agricultural production.