Smallholder farmers provide the key to tackling the climate crisis

The text highlights the critical role of over 500 million smallholder farms in global food production and the severe funding gap they face for climate adaptation. It calls for a new consensus among governments and international aid groups to increase financial aid, improve data collection, and deploy climate-resilient technologies to support these farmers, who currently receive only a small fraction of global climate finance.

• Smallholder farmers, defined as those with less than two hectares of land, number over 500 million globally and produce 80 per cent of food. In Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the agriculture sector accounts for an average of 40 per cent of jobs and 15 per cent of GDP.
• There is a significant deficit in climate finance for smallholder farmers; while their global annual financial need is estimated at $240bn, they received only $10bn in 2018, representing just 1.7 per cent of total global climate finance.
• Food systems are a major driver of climate change, contributing more than one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Conversely, nature-based adaptation solutions could provide one-third of the mitigation required by 2030 to limit global warming to below 2°C.
• Data collection for food systems is severely limited, with only 10 per cent of countries possessing the capacity to publish or collect sufficiently disaggregated data.

APA

Ki-Moon, B. (2021). Smallholder farmers provide the key to tackling the climate crisis. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/news/smallholder-farmers-provide-the-key-to-tackling-the-climate-crisis/

Chicago

Ki-Moon, Ban. Smallholder farmers provide the key to tackling the climate crisis. Climate Policy Initiative, 2021. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/news/smallholder-farmers-provide-the-key-to-tackling-the-climate-crisis/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Ki-Moon |first1=Ban |title=Smallholder farmers provide the key to tackling the climate crisis |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=15 October 2021 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/news/smallholder-farmers-provide-the-key-to-tackling-the-climate-crisis/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{kimoon2021smallholder, author = {Ki-Moon, Ban}, title = {{Smallholder farmers provide the key to tackling the climate crisis}}, publisher = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2021}, month = oct, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/news/smallholder-farmers-provide-the-key-to-tackling-the-climate-crisis/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }