Rome, 10 November 2009 – The five hundred million smallholder farms feeding at least one-third of humanity, who are feeling the harshest impact of climate change, can not be ignored when world leaders meet next month in Copenhagen, said Rodney Cooke from IFAD, in a briefing with journalists today.

“Smallholder farmers can make important contributions to saving our planet,” Cooke said. “These are contributions of agriculture and land use to reduce global warming by capturing carbon in the soil and decreasing deforestation. But to do this, smallholder farmers need secure access to land and water, markets, infrastructure, rural financial services, together with research and technology to improve their resilience to climate change and to boost agricultural production. These are the messages IFAD will take to Copenhagen.” emphasized Cooke who is in charge of the technical division at IFAD.

Agriculture is the backbone of the economy in many developing countries, employing as much as 70 per cent of the total workforce. Smallholder farmers in developing countries are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change with increases of crop failure and livestock mortality, which result in indebtedness, migration and dependency on food aid.

Climate change is expected to put an estimated 49 million more people at risk of hunger by 2020. In Africa, where smallholders farm 80 per cent of the total farmland, it is expected that between 75 and 250 million more people will be exposed to water stress in the same time frame. Agricultural production must double by 2050 to meet food needs, while adapting to a warmer climate.

The United Nation's climate conference COP15 in Copenhagen on December 7-18 aims to agree on a follow up to the Kyoto Protocol. IFAD calls for negotiators to focus on investment in sustainable agriculture programmes that are providing increased food yields and environmental benefits, while building climate resilience for the smallholder farmer.

“Investing in agriculture—including crops, livestock and aquaculture—is a powerful poverty reduction tool,” Cooke said. “Because the majority of those who are hungry live in rural areas and depend on smallholder farms for their livelihoods, investing in small farmers is the most efficient way to target those in need.”

Press release No.: IFAD/52/09

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The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) works with poor rural people to enable them to grow and sell more food, increase their incomes and determine the direction of their own lives. Since 1978, IFAD has invested over US$11 billion in grants and low-interest loans to developing countries, empowering some 350 million people to break out of poverty. IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized UN agency based in Rome – the UN’s food and agricultural hub. It is a unique partnership of 165 members from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), other developing countries and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).