The 439 million smallholder farmers globally are spending as much as $368 billion collectively of their own income each year on tackling the impacts of climate change, including on pest control, soil improvements, and biodiversity conservation, which significantly dwarfs the $230 mln pledged for the Adaptation Fund at last year’s COP27 and highlights the increased levels of climate support required by the sector that produces around a third of the world’s food, according to a study published Tuesday.

A global survey of more than 1,800 farmers across 13 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America conducted by the Forest Farm Facility and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) found that, on average, each smallholder farming household was investing $838 per year on climate change adaptation measures – amounting to $368 bln collectively on an annual basis.

The scale of this personal investment is many times the amount of climate finance that has so far been made accessible to the sector, with just 0.3% of international climate finance spent helping small-scale family farmers adapt to climate change in 2021 – amounting to $2 bln, according to separate analysis published by farmer networks representing over 35 mln small-scale producers in Africa, Latin America, and Asia and the Pacific.

Global climate finance for smallholder farmers therefore pales considerably compared with what is needed to help the sector tackle the many threats presented by global warming, including reduced yields, lower rainfall, disease outbreaks, and increased drought, the study said.

Indeed, adaptation finance needs to increase by 10 to 18 times to help the most vulnerable communities adapt to climate change, according to the UN’s recently published Adaptation Gap report.

TAPPING INTO CARBON

The global carbon markets can be an important financing pool for smallholder farmers to tap into, with many initiatives emerging in developing countries to support the sector.

The state government of Assam in Northeast India is working with partners to establish a smallholder farming network able to earn credits for agricultural innovation, with the project implemented by Gold Standard and expected to realise an annual yield of over 150,000 credits, it was announced in August.

At the same time, global cooperatives such as Cargill and Arla are engaging with their supply chains to support climate adaptation measures and improve supply chain resiliency, with some of these programmes offering direct funding for climate adaptation measures.

GLOBAL MISMATCH

IIED’s report, The unsung giants of climate and nature investment, found that, on average, the farmers surveyed spend between 20-40% of their annual income on trialling and implementing ecological farming practices to adapt to climate change, including adapting their harvesting schedules, controlling pests, soil improvements, ecosystem protection measures, and attending training courses.

It also noted that the analysis did not assign a dollar value to the amount of time invested by smallholders on implementing these measures, with the survey indicating that each smallholder household spends on average 107 days a year on climate adaptation measures, with 41% of participants spending more than 40% of their farming hours on them.

That means the $368 bln figure is actually a gross under-estimation of the total investment made by smallholders on climate adaptation, according to the report.

“Farmers working small plots of land around the globe are the unsung heroes of the battle to adapt to the climate and nature crises. Climate change has already had profound impacts on their ways of life. They are also investing significant amounts of their time and money to adapt, often in ways that can help people and nature thrive together, dwarfing the contributions from rich governments,” said Xiaoting Hou-Jones, senior researcher at IIED.

Greater levels of support are needed by the international community to help smallholder farmers tackle with the effects of a warming planet, said Damian Sulumo, programme officer at Tanzanian farmers association MVWAARUSHA, whose members took part in the survey.

“The international community needs to heed the evidence that shows providing direct finance through producer organisations like cooperatives, associations, and territorial groups, can support and encourage smallholder producers to take action,” he said.

Just over a third of IIED survey respondents said they had received some kind of external climate change adaptation support, mainly from NGOs, farmer cooperatives, or associations, but many said they were still in need of help, including financial support, training, and education.

Agriculture and food production is expected to be a major focus of discussions at COP28, set to commence in Dubai in a few weeks’ time.

By Bryony Collins – bryony@carbon-pulse.com

** Click here to sign up to our twice-weekly biodiversity newsletter **