Sustainable coffee production in Kenya: land and water saving through optimal crop distribution

Agriculture plays a key role in the attainment of development goals to promote growth and reduce poverty in Africa. Crop production in Kenya is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades, so in turn unprecedented amounts of resources such as water, fertilizers and energy will be required. World Bank (https://www.2030wrg.org/kenya/) considers water constraints as one the main challenges to Kenya development. To meet the increasing need for agricultural commodities with limited water resources, the water use efficiency of the agricultural sector must be improved. Despite Kenya’s reputation for producing exceptionally high-quality Arabica coffees, the country’s coffee sector is facing a stagnation in production due to the lack of natural resources (water shortage, cropland being lost to housing developments etc.) and political instability. Here we study, at fine scale, the relation between hydrological fluxes and crop (coffee) growth to investigate the extent to which land and water could be sustainable used for increasing coffee production while avoiding competition for land and water resources and preserving crop diversity, economic value, nitrogen fixation.