The buffering potential is, however, dependent on crop performance and local market sale prices, which in turn are dictated by rainfall, setting limits for the potentials of the harvest in this Selleck MK-0457 rain-fed agriculture. During the remaining months of the year (September, December and April) households are again under pressure because food supplies are declining rapidly, while they must simultaneously spend much time on weeding and clearing land. But since rainfall is less

intense and disease burdens are lower throughout these months, households do cope because livelihood expenses are lower and food supplies are not yet exhausted. During hardship periods, on the other hand, these buffers are not available and hunger GSK1120212 looms, which forces many households to drain their liquid assets in an effort to relieve livelihood stress. Figure 7 illustrates the order of these employed mechanisms; interestingly, they form a similar and recognizable pattern, which was formerly followed mainly during severe droughts and famines

(see Hutchinson 1998). Fig. 7 Generalized pattern of coping with climate variability and change. The figure is based on focus groups with smallholder farmers from four communities in the LVB. Adapted from Hutchinson (1998) and modified by the authors Today, however, farmers employ these coping mechanisms on a more BVD-523 ic50 regular and recurrent basis (Focus groups 2008–2009). This, we argue, signifies that a substantial shift in the degree of livelihood stress is currently underway among rural smallholders

in the LVB, away from occasional and sudden hardship periods, caused by temporary climate extremes (meteorological droughts and floods), and towards livelihoods driven and characterized by recurrent and persistent agricultural drought and subsequent chronic livelihood stress. Similar changes have also been observed in other rural smallholder settings. For example, Smucker and Wisner’s Florfenicol (2008) study in Tharaka, Kenya, demonstrates that the variety of coping mechanisms employed by farmers has diminished considerably compared to 20 years ago. In a study from northern Tanzania, Traerup and Mertz (2011) show how contemporary farmers increasingly rely on similar and sometimes competitive strategies, with exacerbated livelihood stress as a result. Similarly, in Kisumwa, diversification through specializing in beer making and charcoal production is a key coping strategy among women as a means to increase household incomes during hardship periods, while in Thurdibuoro and Onjiko diversification, through sales of ropes, baskets, dried fish and tomatoes, is common. A difficulty with such widespread reliance on a similar coping mechanism in one and the same community, in combination with a narrowing of overall strategies, is a decline in available natural resources and the saturation of home-made products in the local market place (field data 2008–2009).