In pictures: The small-scale farmers tending to Mother Earth

Our planet is the mother of all the life we know. The clean air we breathe, the fresh water we drink and the delicious food that nourishes us all come from the earth's bounty.

As farmers, fishers and herders, rural people understand that their own wellbeing is tied to the wellbeing of Mother Earth. Diverse and bountiful ecosystems produce ample food and a healthy environment. Rural economies thrive when nature flourishes.

That’s why IFAD works with governments around the world to finance and technically support projects that enable small-scale farmers to nurture the planet that nurtures us. Since 2000, IFAD has invested US$4 billion in sustainable land management and channelled US$1.4 billion in climate finance to small-scale farmers. Of the IFAD projects completed between 2018 and 2023, 70 per cent conserved biodiversity and 60 per cent equipped rural people to use agroecological practices.

Meet some of the rural people who are listening to Mother Earth’s call, tending to the natural world and reaping bountiful rewards.

Margareth has gone back to the basics of growing local, organic food in her garden in the Solomon Islands. After the devastation of COVID-19 lockdowns and trade disruptions, she received seeds, labour-saving tools and guidance from extension workers through PIRAS. This US$8.1 million programme, financed by IFAD, helped Margareth and other rural women bring their vegetable plots to life. Margareth is seeing her garden yield a diverse bounty to feed her family.

After a lengthy dry season, most of the cocoa trees that Boiman cultivates in Indonesia had died. But with technical support from the US$55.33 million READ-SI project co-financed by IFAD and the Indonesian government, Boiman learned to ferment a mix of straw, charcoal, cow urine and dung, inoculated with Trichoderma fungus. A month later, this combination turned into a rich organic fertilizer – and Boiman revived his rice paddy and cocoa trees.

“The soil is healthier and getting better every day,” Boiman says.

For Hashem, a sheep farmer in Jordan, the path to prosperity involved a counter-intuitive move: reducing his herd from 450 sheep to only 300. He exchanged his animals for more productive ones provided through the US$25.93 million SIGHT programme, co-funded by IFAD with the European Union, the Facility for Refugees, Migrants, Forced Displacement and Rural Stability, and the Jordanian government.

He now obtains five times as much milk per animal, and having fewer animals reduces the use of natural resources and lowers methane emissions. By treating the earth gently, Hashem is producing more.

Desertification is sweeping across southern Mauritania, and when the rain falls it's intense, sweeping away the precious topsoil and making desertification worse. Now, with support from PROGRES, rural people are coming together to reinforce earthen dykes and build stone gabions to stem the tide. Using heavy machinery, they carry rocks from 3 kilometres away, then collect and place smaller rocks to reinforce structures that channel the water safely and store it for irrigation.

In Michoacán, Mexico, Eliseo is a member of the Indigenous Charapan community uniting to defend their forests from illegal logging. With support from the US$91.3 million Cuenca Balsas project, co-financed by IFAD in partnership with the Government of Mexico and the Green Climate Fund, Eliseo and his community are working to protect over 122,000 hectares of land through conservation, forest management, soil restoration and reforestation.

As one of 70 Indigenous Awajún women who protect the Bosque de las Nuwas, a forest in the Amazon region of Peru, Ruth considers herself a custodian of the future. Supported by Avanzar Rural, which has received US$71.47 million in co-financing from IFAD, the Government of Peru and other partners, Ruth and her colleagues grow medicinal plants, conserve and register native species, teach visitors about the forest and engage in reforestation.

“Reforesting is not a benefit for me. At some point, I will no longer be here. Those who will remain are the ones who are going to enjoy the environment, the air and everything that we will leave to them,” says Ruth.

Jaime João and other members of the Binzole cooperative, who received training and support from the US$12.14 million AFAP initiative, are growing a network of fish ponds and vegetable gardens across parts of northern Angola. These ecosystems not only deliver diverse and delicious foods to the cooperative members, but also show how healthy wetlands and agricultural landscapes can co-exist and strengthen each other.

Early in the morning, seaweed farmers on the Pemba Island of Tanzania take advantage of the low tide to collect their harvest. They bring the seaweed to shore to be dried at a collection centre. From there, it goes on to be used in medicines, cosmetics and the production of carrageenan. With support from LDFS, a GEF-funded initiative backed by IFAD, these farmers are sustainably increasing their harvest from the bounty of the ocean.

Around the world, small-scale farmers, herders and fishers are heeding Mother Earth’s call.

Are you?