Climate change and smallholder agriculture: perspectives of FOs

Issues for thematic working

Three quarters of the world’s one billion extremely poor people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods. These are the people who are hardest hit by climate change.

The effects of climate change are already being felt and, even if measures are taken immediately, they will accelerate further, putting millions of poor rural people at risk. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), agricultural production in many countries will likely be severely compromised by climate variability and change in the coming years.

Adaptation is part of the coping strategy for poor rural people. However, adaptation measures are not always available; they have to vary according to the context and to adapt to a new magnitude of erratic climate changes. Suitable responses will be determined by the nature of risks related to climate change, geographical locations and livelihoods. They will require a large amount of technical and financial support. The international community took the commitment during the last conference of parties in Bali to increase the amount of the adaptation fund which has been established to help developing countries meet the costs of adaptation. The issue is now to design and implement an efficient process to help the rural poor benefit effectively from it.

Mitigation of Green House Gases emission is another building block of the response to climate change. Poor rural people, as stewardships of large surface of lands, forests and other natural resources can play a major role in mitigating the effects of climate change by sustainable management practices. They can, for example, rehabilitate degraded crop and pasture land, use minimum tillage, and improve forestry and livestock management.

The global carbon market is expanding fast, with billions of dollars pouring into carbon trading schemes. However, the mechanisms developed so far rarely take the interests of the rural poor into account. Furthermore, rural people are in certain circumstances victims of the implemented programmes. The voices of those who are most affected - poor rural people – are seldom heard.

One way of effectively engaging smallholders in the mitigation process is to expand the concept of carbon trading to include compensating rural communities for soil conservation and reforestation. Payment for Environmental Services, where poor rural people are paid for protecting biodiversity and the environment can be another option. 

Questions to guide the working group discussion:

• How can poor rural people adapt to the new magnitude of climate change and benefit from the new UNCCC Adaptation Fund?
• How can rural poor people benefit from existing or new mitigation mechanisms? For example, how can they be paid for the environmental services they provide?
• What role can farmers and small producers’ organisations play to advocate for the rural poor in the design and implementation of climate change policies and strategies?
• How can IFAD help to support the rural poor and their organisations in this context?