IFAD: More Climate Finance in Support of Small-scale Farmers Urgently Needed

Oluchi Chibuzor

Boosting investments to help small-scale farmers adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis is more urgent than ever, the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) at the United Nations Conference has warned.

This is because small-scale farmers produce one-third of the world’s food, but receive only 1.7 per cent of climate finance and with the latest IPCC reports that have urged all stakeholders to act before it is too late, as the window of opportunity to secure a sustainable future for rural populations is fast closing.

IFAD in a statement said scientific evidence had proven that investments in climate adaptation reduce risks to people and nature, saving lives and protecting and improving livelihoods.

Speaking at a side event of the conference that commemorates the historic 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the Associate Vice-President of IFAD and a global climate leader, Jyostna Puri, “If we leave small-scale farmers out of the climate finance efforts, we are simply pulling the trigger for food shortages, food insecurity, mass migration, social unrest and conflict.

“We need to ensure that small scale farmers, who are at the core of our food systems, can adapt to climate change and continue to produce our food tomorrow. We know which adaptation techniques work, particularly those based on nature. We need to bring them to scale and do it quickly.”

According to the statement, small-scale farmers, as well as indigenous peoples, could be efficient stewards of biodiversity and ecosystems and they could also significantly contribute to climate mitigation efforts by protecting soils and biodiversity and helping to store carbon.

However, they often lack the financial resources and capacities to adapt to, or recover from, environmental changes and natural disasters increasingly triggered by climate change.

“Nature-based solutions such as agroecology, agroforestry, or ecological management in fisheries, which are at the core of IFAD’s climate adaptation work, are effective means to improve food security and livelihoods. They also generate income, while protecting biodiversity, and human and ecosystem health.

“These solutions bring along notable social benefits, such as improving land access to marginalized groups or fostering women’s empowerment by harnessing their unique knowledge,” it added.

It noted that approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); most of them live in rural areas.

It noted that in low-income countries, rural communities were often the hardest hit by extreme weather events because they are the least able to cope with and recover from climate change shocks.

 The latest IPCC reports urged all stakeholders to act before it would be too late, as the window of opportunity to secure a sustainable future for rural populations is fast closing.

Scientific evidence had proven that investments in climate adaptation reduce risks to people and nature, saving lives and protecting and improving livelihoods, as these investments had become more urgent than previously thought, according to the IPCC.