Growing Food and Confidence: Kenyan Women Chart New Ways to Live Through Drought

Research involving women in three counties explores how growing mushrooms and vegetables could help families rebuild food supplies, confidence and a sense of shared possibility.

In Kenya's pastoral communities, losing livestock during a drought can mean losing food, income and a way of life built around animals and the land. Mothers described the strain of finding meals for their children as familiar sources of milk and meat disappeared and relatives travelled away in search of pasture. Research involving women in three counties explores how growing mushrooms and vegetables could help families rebuild food supplies, confidence and a sense of shared possibility.

The research, titled "Climate change trauma and social-ecological resilience building: insights from pastoral women in Kenya", was published in Frontiers in Conservation Science and led by Esther Kanduma of the University of Nairobi. Researchers surveyed 1,138 women in Kajiado, Narok and Taita Taveta counties between May 2024 and January 2025, documenting experiences of the 2022–2024 drought. Questionnaires and group discussions captured household experiences, and upper-arm measurements assessed the nutritional status of 941 children younger than ten.

Around 64% of the women were younger than 35, placing young mothers at the centre of the research into climate-related hardship. Among participants who supplied income information, approximately 74% relied on casual labour, and 13% reported no income-generating activity. Poverty, interrupted schooling, early marriage and pregnancy formed part of the wider pressures described in the paper, leaving many women with few resources to manage drought losses.

Hunger and Distress Reached Deep Into Family Life

Among mothers answering the question about feeding children during drought, 347, or roughly 32%, said they had been unable to do so. About 86% of respondents to the food-assistance question received no help, and 40% of those reporting drought effects described starvation. Children's arm measurements placed 519, or 55%, in the paper's "moderate" or "bad" nutritional categories, with Narok recording the highest share in the "bad" category at approximately 33%.

Around 58% of women answering the relevant questions reported stress or mental-health difficulties, a similar proportion wanted counselling, and 45% reported drought-related conflict. Participants described hunger and anxiety as shared community experiences tied to livestock losses, family separation and competition for water and pasture. The researchers used the idea of solastalgia to describe the grief people can feel when the familiar environment supporting their identity and daily life deteriorates around them.

Practical Farming Skills Opened New Food Choices

Working with county partners during 2024–2025, the project trained 401 women from 18 groups and 342 learners from five schools in mushroom cultivation, vegetable production or both. Practical sessions covered preparing growing materials, sterilisation, planting, monitoring, cooking and drying, with vertical gardens offering another way to produce household vegetables. Women trained as group facilitators helped share the skills, and repeated conversations with participants gave researchers a way to build trust around immediate food needs.

Mushrooms offered an option that could grow on agricultural residues without soil or direct dependence on rainfall, with a growing cycle of about two months. Used growing material could become compost for vegetable gardens, connecting food production with the reuse of materials already available locally. Selected groups in Kajiado received beekeeping and tree-growing support, establishing 25 hives and planting more than 2,000 trees to provide forage for bees.

New Foods Found Acceptance, With Uneven Uptake

An evaluation in August and September 2025 involved 194 women and 204 learners, examining food choices, farming skills and participants' experiences of the project. Among the women, 87% described mushrooms as very tasty, and 45% deliberately included them in meals to support particular family members, including children and older people. Group discussions described initial fears about eating mushrooms giving way to acceptance, with families reporting more varied meals and new ways to prepare and preserve food.

Cultivation remained centred on groups, with 11 of the original 18 women's groups actively producing mushrooms and vegetables at the time reported. Approximately 46% of women evaluated grew vegetables at home, and only nine reported growing mushrooms at household level. Twenty-three respondents sold surplus mushrooms to friends and relatives, providing examples of income generation without establishing how much individual households earned over time.

At follow-up, 76% of households with dietary-diversity scores fell into the high category, and 153 of 194 households had an acceptable food-consumption score. School responses recorded 65 learners practising mushroom cultivation and 193 eating vegetables at school, showing how training reached into everyday school meals. Women's discussions described greater confidence, stronger social connections, savings and more influence over household decisions through their contributions to food and income.

Lasting Progress Depends on Support Beyond Training

Water scarcity remained the most pressing barrier, making reliable supplies essential for both mushroom cultivation and vegetable gardens despite their potential during drought. Participants identified production costs, inadequate storage, limited drying equipment, unreliable buyers and gaps in technical knowledge as obstacles to continued farming. Longer training, activities closer to women's homes, better production facilities and help with product certification could make the work easier to sustain and connect groups with wider markets.

The observational design and lack of a comparison group meant the researchers could not establish that training caused the reported improvements. Mental health was assessed through descriptive questions and personal accounts rather than validated psychological tests, so the distress figures do not represent clinical diagnoses. Recall errors, responses shaped by a desire to please interviewers and easing drought conditions could have influenced the findings, leaving uncertainty about how much of the change came from training.

The researchers call for sustained investment in water infrastructure, healthcare, mental-health services, education and social support, supported by continued farming advice and stronger markets. Linking the work with county agriculture, school and nutrition programmes could help newer groups establish themselves and give experienced growers a firmer basis for continuing. Women's accounts suggest that practical ways to feed a family can offer hope and connection, with lasting resilience depending on the services and opportunities available around them.