For Kenya’s James Ochola, farming has been his business since he dropped out of school two decades ago. Ochola has perennially grown maize, millet, beans and groundnut in his two acres land that his late father allocated to him for his family’s food consumption. He also sells surplus to the nearby market in Western Kenya.

“This is my occupation though it is threatened by annual crop failure that forces me to purchase cereals for my family,” Ochola told Xinhua in an Interview on Tuesday.

Ochola said that he has tried adding traditional manure to his land every time he is planting for the new crop, but the soil nutrient coupled by delayed rainfall has complicated his plans.

“The size of harvest that I get from my land has reduced to five bags from 14 bags,” he revealed.

According to scientists, crop failure in sub-Saharan Africa is blamed on the changing climate that has led to low harvest, livestock deaths and recurrent drought.

However, all is not lost as attempts to find a lasting solution has continued courtesy of the universities and scientists from the Kenya-based Consultative Group of Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which includes the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF). Read more