Small-Scale Farmers Deserve Big Share of Climate Funds: IFAD

As important food producers, small-scale farmers in the developing world should get a significant share of funds raised to help poorer countries adapt to climate change impacts and curb emissions, agriculture officials said at U.N. climate negotiations in Peru.

Investment in easy-to-access weather information, extensions services, improved disaster preparedness, and other cost-effective and efficient new technology could help small-scale farmers keep feeding themselves and their families, they said.

Farmers “are more than victims of climate change impacts,” said Gernot Laganda, head of the environment and climate change division of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

“Our experience shows that the smallholder farmers are an integral part of the solution to global warming,” he said at the launch of an IFAD report at the talks.

With around 500 million smallholder farms producing much of the food supply in many developing countries, farmers must be seen as running “vital businesses” in need of greater climate resilience, IFAD officials said.

That greater resilience could come from investment of funds in agricultural adaptation, and efforts to limit climate-changing emissions from agriculture, they said.

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