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Gradually, pasturelands are being converted into other land uses or enclosed for exclusive uses under various national laws or policies. Resilience of pastoralist communities to the changing environments – ecological, economic and political – has great potential to protecting and conserving the pastureland landscapes or waterscapes. Such resilience is more talked in context of climate change and its impact on the herder communities surviving in marginal environments. In the view of widespread regional and national policy failures and modernity-catalyzed societal rejection of transhumance and nomadic pastoralism, International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026 declared by the United Nations General Assembly is a grand opportunity for all to revitalize the least-external-input driven systems of livestock raising and mobility across the continents. This international blind peer-review journal, ‘Pastures & Pastoralism’, will contribute to the science, policy and practice across the world by providing a novel platform to seasoned, budding and young scientists, experts and practitioners, including the pastoral community members.
Armara Macimilliam Galwab*1, Oscar Kipchirchir Koech2, Oliver Vivian Wasonga3
1County Government of Marsabit, Department of Public Service and Administration, Marsabit, Kenya.
Email: agalwab@gmail.com | ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9476-7127
2Department of Land Resources Management and Agricultural Technology, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya.
Email: oscarkip@uonbi.ac.ke | ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8245-5185
3Department of Land Resources Management and Agricultural Technology, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya.
Email: oliverwasonga@uonbi.ac.ke | ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5929-6091
*Corresponding author
Pastures & Pastoralism, 03, 21-47. Doi: https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0302
Received: 10 December 2024
Reviewed: 19 March 2025
Revised: 22 April 2025
Accepted: 25 April 2025
Published: 15 May 2025
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Climate variability causes pulsed livestock and crop production, and in severe cases, production failure. It is, thus, an important predictor of household livelihood choice in pastoral and agro-pastoral communities that rely on rain-fed pastures and crops. The objective of this study was to investigate the factors that influence household livelihood choices and determine the repercussions that will help northern Kenya’s pastoral and agro-pastoral production and adaptation policies. The historical self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) was calculated every month using the 40-year monthly mean precipitation, monthly average temperature, and climatological soil available water storage capacity. The hydrological drought severity index analysis showed that Sololo and Maikona experienced the most severe floods in the years 2000, and 2020, with huge indexes of around +370, and +220, respectively. A multinomial logistic model was used to analyze primary data collected from 396 randomly selected pastoral and agro-pastoral households in four wards of Marsabit County and relate the outcome to climate variability to deduce the determinants of livelihood choices in response to climate variability among pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in Northern Kenya in a location-specific manner. Results show the likelihood of a household selecting crop farming (p< 0.05) and other non-farming occupations (p< 0.01), but positively associated with the likelihood of a household choosing livestock keeping. Education strongly (p< 0.05) predicted a household’s preference for paid jobs and crop farming over animal rearing. This shows that the educated household heads are more likely to prefer formal jobs and crop farming to animal rearing. Adopting alternative livelihood sources, such as raising adopted livestock species (camel, goats) and drought-tolerant crop species, is often influenced by respondents’ socioeconomic characteristics. To attain a sustainable livelihood option in Marsabit County, policies that strengthen these features must be drawn and executed.
Multinomial logit model; Pastoralism; Livelihood; Climate variability
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Galwab, A.M., Koech, O.K. and Wasonga, O.V. (2025). Determinants of Livelihood Choices in Response to Climate Variability among the Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Communities in Northern Kenya. Pastures & Pastoralism, 03: 21-47. Doi: https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0302
Galwab A.M., Koech O.K., Wasonga O.V. Determinants of Livelihood Choices in Response to Climate Variability among the Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Communities in Northern Kenya. Pastures & Pastoralism, 2025, 03, 21-47. https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0302
Galwab, Armara Macimilliam, Koech, Oscar Kipchirchir, Wasonga, Oliver Vivian. 2025. “Determinants of Livelihood Choices in Response to Climate Variability among the Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Communities in Northern Kenya”. Pastures & Pastoralism, 03: 21-47. https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0302
Galwab, Armara Macimilliam, Oscar Kipchirchir Koech and Oliver Vivian Wasonga. 2025. “Determinants of Livelihood Choices in Response to Climate Variability among the Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Communities in Northern Kenya”. Pastures & Pastoralism, 03: 21-47. https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0302
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