Josephine Kihu has worked her coffee farm in Nyeri for three decades. This year, prolonged sunshine forced her to switch to a more resilient bean variety. It’s a business decision, but one she can’t avoid—and it’s costing her.
An Africanews report says Kihu is among many Kenyan farmers dealing with unreliable weather amid climate change and a looming super El Nino. Doctors say the uncertainty is adding to emotional stress and mental health concerns across farming communities. Global weather patterns haven’t been dependable this year. Farmers say the swings are disrupting livelihoods and leaving them unsure about harvests and income.
Adapting at Their Own Expense
Farmers aren’t waiting for rescue. They’re adjusting—and paying for it themselves. Kihu said she never had to water her seedlings when rains were reliable. That’s changed. “Let’s see now you can see it’s raining. Is it really raining? This is drizzling. It cannot help the tree. So it forces us to employ someone to water the coffee tree,” she said.
Now she has to hire labor for a job rain once did for free. For a smallholder, each added cost cuts into an already thin margin.
Kihu described the gamble involved. “Can you imagine how much money, you have invested here? I have invested a lot and finally I don’t harvest anything, I might die. As a farmer, you could go insane,” she said. She believes unpredictable weather has affected farmers’ mental wellbeing, though some may not recognize what’s causing their distress.
A Herd Lost in Three Months
In Kiawara, Charles Ndung’u has kept livestock for more than two decades. Goat farming had long provided dependable income, even in the area’s semi-arid conditions. This year, that changed. March rainfall didn’t produce enough pasture to carry the animals through a prolonged dry spell. Then a livestock disease outbreak in June made matters worse, and losses began to mount.
From July, some goats grew too weak to stand. Ndung’u said he lost 40 goats in three months.
The risks haven’t passed. Early rainfall could now wash away the small amount of dry feed the surviving goats have lived on, while new pasture will take time to grow. “The seeds are in the ground and we are not sure if they will sprout. We are waiting to see if the rains continue. If they don’t grow, that’s more stress. We don’t have money,” he said.
The goats provide a household’s working capital. “We depend on the goats for our children’s school fees. You would sell one or two and send children to school. Without the goats and money, we have many problems,” Ndung’u said.
What the Clinicians See
Kahindo Gacago, a clinical psychologist at Outspan Hospital in Nyeri, said climate-related pressures are contributing to mental-health concerns among farmers. “The cumulative losses and also the chronic stress that comes with always having to plan to know what to do at this time or when,” he said. “Especially when you feel like you’ve lost control, because something like the weather it’s not something in your control.”
Gacago said he believes about a third of his patients are farmers with mental health issues linked to repeated agricultural losses. Changing conditions can erode a farmer’s sense of identity, he said, when familiar practices must be abandoned, different lifestyles adopted, or families moved to find more promising land. Some farmers may turn to alcohol or other substances to cope, he said.
The Policy Ask
Gacago urged policymakers to include mental wellbeing in farmer support programmes, promote climate-smart agriculture and improve access to irrigation. Irrigation addresses the problem farmers describe most directly. Kihu is already paying someone to water her trees by hand. Reliable access to water could turn that stopgap into a system.
Why This Matters:
The farmers in this report are doing what resilient businesses do: switching crops, hiring help and absorbing losses, mostly on their own. Their problem is risk they can’t hedge. A failed harvest or dead herd wipes out the cash they need for school fees. Practical tools such as irrigation access and climate-smart methods are therefore clear areas for policymakers and private investment to focus on. Gacago’s call to fold mental wellbeing into support programmes adds a new demand on public budgets, and officials will have to weigh it against the proven value of keeping farms productive. Kenya’s farm households sit at the base of the rural economy. When their income turns unreliable, the strain spreads to families, schools and local markets.