WASHINGTON — The agriculture sector is one of the world’s largest contributors to global climate change. But reaching farmers with financing to promote climate-smart and adaptive practices can be difficult as such a high percentage of those growing the planet’s food are smallholders.
While many aspects of climate finance remain difficult to track, financing to smallholder farmers is particularly tricky because there are so many around the world, with such vastly varied access to formal banking, insurance products, government programs, technical assistance, and digital connectivity. They often do not have enough savings to invest in a new product or practice touted as climate-smart, if there is no guarantee it will ensure a sufficient yield.
“We don’t know how much climate finance is actually reaching smallholder farmers. We know it’s not a lot, but we don’t have the numbers,” said Ricci Symons of the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s environment, climate, gender, and social inclusion division.