Evaluating the Adaptation Benefits of Cold Storage and Market Connectivity for Kenyan Fisherfolk on Lake Turkana
Fishing plays a central role in the livelihoods and food security of many rural communities in Kenya, particularly around Lake Turkana, where climate variability, spoilage of catch, and limited market access have historically constrained economic opportunities. Keep IT Cool (KIC) is a social enterprise that provides solar refrigeration and cold chain logistics for smallholder chicken farmers and fisherfolk in Kenya. The Nairobi-based start-up works with Beach Management Units (BMUs), which are fisherfolk cooperative groups, in Lake Victoria and Lake Turkana to reduce post-harvest losses and facilitate marketing of high value fish (tilapia and Nile perch) in the domestic Kenyan market. In this study, we use a difference-in-differences (DiD) methodology with treatment and control fisherfolk to examine the impacts of the KIC partnership on a variety of outcomes among fisherfolk, including financial and economic outcomes, nutrition and food security, fish production, social capital, and household wealth. We also examine the resilience of study participants to various shocks, and what this resilience is worth to them. Overall, treatment and control groups were somewhat different at baseline. Time invariant differences (unobserved and observed) and observed time varying differences are controlled for in the DiD strategy. Overall, we find that working with KIC reduced fish spoilage and losses for fisherfolk in partner BMUs, which contributed to enhancing food and income security. The intervention also contributed to economic empowerment, increasing the ability of fisherfolk to purchase their own fishing equipment. This financial autonomy was, in turn, associated with increased commitment to fishing. Finally, though catch did not significantly change, beneficiary fishermen appeared more capable of investing in building alternative sources of income, thus diversifying their livelihoods. These positive results notwithstanding, it is evident that there is a need to strengthen the adaptive capacity of local communities in the face of the adverse impacts of climate change, including their ability to cope with, absorb, and respond to shocks. The majority of respondents in both treatment and control groups reported experiencing a recent decrease in fish yields due to climate change, with increased temperature being the most consistently reported change. Willingness to pay for greater resilience was considerable. Yet, respondents emphasized the need for greater access to modern preservation technologies and knowledge about climate change, as well as finance, to cope with emerging risks. Thus, future interventions could focus on supporting similar local businesses and small and medium enterprises, particularly by providing training on the adoption and use of innovative technological solutions. Such efforts may enhance the resilience of local value chains, their sustainability, and contribute to the socioeconomic empowerment of local communities. Future research should build on this study to develop more concrete and standardized measures of the value of resilience in climate-vulnerable sectors, to support evaluations of broader adaptation and resilience efforts.
