Sub-Saharan Africa’s small-scale farmers, who account for more than half of the continent’s workforce, must be a focus of climate conference COP 28, according to experts at a press briefing organized by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Agricultural innovation and supporting farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia is a top focus area for the foundation. Experts at last week’s briefing pushed for more investment in solutions such as seed breeding, weather intelligence, and agricultural emissions reductions in order to help farmers adapt to climate change.
Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, which the Food and Agriculture Organization defines as those working on up to 10 hectares, are disproportionately affected by climate change. Temperatures in the region have risen faster than the global average, and losses on African farms are almost twice the global average — according to United Nations climate experts, climate change already has reduced per-capita GDP across Africa by 13.6%, mostly because of its impact on agriculture. Yet sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and only 1.7% of climate finance is targeting the needs of the region’s smallholder farmers.