Enhancing Access to Community Mental Health Services for Women Smallholder Farmers Affected By Climate Change

Summary

AgriPsych Beam Ltd logo

Agripsych Beam Ltd is a Kenyan Healthtech company that uses mobile technology to enhance access to mental health services for smallholder farmers affected by climate change. Our focus at AgriPsych Beam Ltd is to ensure that women smallholder farmers have a mental wellbeing safety net after crop or livestock loss or devastation of their agriculture enterprise as a result of climate change.

In many cases, climate adaptation efforts focus on directly on modifications to enterprises/businesses. Smallholder farmers are, for example, taught how to plant climate resilient crops, obtain crop insurance, or find other livelihood alternatives. Interventions rarely centre on farmers and their wellbeing, despite the fact the health of smallholder farmers is essential for businesses to thrive. Agripsych Beam Ltd focuses directly on the psychological wellbeing of entrepreneurs and smallholder farmers.

Target population

We target women smallholder farmers who are predisposed to mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety and trauma related disorders among other mental illnesses.

Partners

We work directly with farmers and also engage with organizations that work with smallholder farmers to provide products and services such as climate smart resilient inputs.

Our team

This programme is led by Dr. Mercy Wawira Njeru,a clinical psychologist. She founded this programme to address the unmet need for mental health services for farming populations facing climate change-related mental health challenges in Kenya.

Her roles in the mental health field include:

• Creating community mental health programmes – through Agripsych Beam Ltd and Psychwell Essence Foundation – that provide access to affordable or free mental health services to women smallholder farmers in low-income, rural communities that are affected by climate change.Running a mental health private clinic in the Westlands area of Nairobi, Kenya.Treating inpatients and outpatients at the Oasis Mental Health Specialty Hospital, where she is also on the hospital governance committee and Chiromo Hospital Group.Mentoring of young psychologists.Contributing to research publications, including:

1. The Effects of Climate Change on the Mental Health of Smallholder Crop Farmers in Embu and Meru Counties of Kenya.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360633900_The_Effects_of_Climate_Change_on_the_Mental_Health_of_Smallholder_Crop_Farmers_in_Embu_and_Meru_Counties_of_Kenya?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InByb2ZpbGUiLCJwYWdlIjoicHJvZmlsZSJ9fQ

The Coping Mechanisms Utilized by Smallholder Crop Farmers to Cope with the Effects of Climate Change and Mental Illnesses in Embu and Meru Counties of Kenya (Pers.Comm).

Background

Climate change-induced stress can cause anxiety, depression, trauma, aggression, antisocial behavior, dissociation & substance use (APA, 2021). Yazd et al. (2019) state farming is a stressful occupation; climate change amplifies this stress. Yet more than 80% of the world’s food is produced by smallholder farmers who do not have access to mental health services.

Kenya experiences widespread and visible climate change impacts, which impacts farmers’ mental health. One study from Eastern Kenya, for instance, indicates a 35.2% prevalence rate of mental health issues among smallholder farmers; 67% of the study participants were women farmers (Njeru, 2022).

Impacts of climate change on farmers’ livelihoods

Firsthand conversations with women smallholder farmers highlight the negative effects of climate change on their livelihood. Problems reported include:

• Dried up rivers due to climate change, leaving farmers with no water for their livestock and farming.Death of livestock from climate change impacts (no water and excessive heat reduces or eliminates fodder for grazing).Reduced agricultural crop productivity due to little or no rains, which causes drought.Occasional migration to look for other regions where smallholder farmers can farmor graze their animals.Increased familial distress as a result of the climate change-induced stresses.Financial distress due to reduced crop yields and economic activity. The little they harvest is all consumed at home.Shifts to alternative economic activities, such as cutting down the few remaining trees to sell charcoal for income. This further amplifies climate change, ultimately worsening the situation for farmers.Children dropping out of school because: their parents are unable to afford school fees; it is too hot to go to school; or they are required at home to go look for water in far places that take hours.

Mental health issues as a result of climate change

Women smallholder farmers report that their physical and psychological health has been negatively affected by climate changes. Problems reported include:

• Severe climate anxiety-related disorders, whereby they experience constant anxiety and have intense worry every season regarding whether there will be sufficient rain to sustain their crops, maintain rivers and fill water tanks.Cases of depression-related disorders due to hopelessness, insomnia and even suicidal thoughts caused by climate change.Trauma-related disorders caused by constant migration due to loss of livelihood, and sometimes loved ones, due to droughts.Psychosis brought on by intense psychosocial stressors, such as total loss of cattle/ goats due to dried up rivers and no grass available to feed livestock.Broken homes caused by conflict due to the inability to cope with the effects of climate change in healthy ways..Mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, among children who are unable to attend school due to the indirect effects of climate change (as outlined above).Medical conditions such as diabetes due to poor eating habits or malnutrition, hypertension and infectious diseases, among others, that add to the already heavy burden of climate change-induced mental health issues.

Insufficient mental health services to address current needs

The current mental health practitioner-to-patient ratio in sub-Saharan Africa is 1.4 mental health workers per 100,000 people. African countries have not been able to meet the mental health needs of their communities.

WHO estimates Kenya allocates about 0.05% of its health budget to mental health, centralising about 70% of these resources in its capital city, Nairobi. This leaves few services available to rural, low-income communities.

Therefore, smallholder farmers living in these rural communities are left without access to affordable mental healthcare services.

Our solution: Mental health support for women smallholder farmers

The above led to Agripsych Beam Limited to fill the gap in mental health services for these smallholder farmers, beginning in 2020.

Our goal is to provide access to affordable or free mental healthcare services to women smallholder farmers. Below are examples of activities we engage in:

A visit to one of the communities to find out the level of awareness of mental health with farmers at Embu

Focus group discussion at Embu with a group of small holder farmers group

Key informant from Embu Community

Individual and group therapy

We provide individual and group therapy to women smallholder farmers to help them with mental health challenges caused by climate change.

Pre-recorded therapy calls

We collaborate with a local telecommunication company to send pre-recorded and pre-paid therapy calls to smallholder farmers every week. Our goal is to make affordable/ free mental health services accessible to smallholder farmers. We plan to reach millions of smallholder farmers in Kenya with this service in the coming years.

Training of paratherapists

Paratherapists/ community-based therapists are the first people to interact with smallholder farmers in rural areas in the Embu Community. We therefore train community health champions to identify mental health issues for appropriate referral and management.

Contact Information

AgriPsych Beam Ltd

Email Address: mercy@agripsychbeam.com

Tel: + 254 700 513 580.

Physical Address: Mwanzi Road Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya.