At the UN Climate Change Subsidiary Bodies meetings (SB64) in Bonn, farmer leaders representing 95 million smallholders across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific delivered a clear message that climate resilience cannot be built without investing directly in the people who produce most of the world’s food, according to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). During a press conference titled “World’s smallholders call for finance action amid El Niño threat,” Esther Penunia, Secretary General of the Asian Farmers Association, Stephen Muchiri, CEO of the East Africa Farmers Federation, and Thomas Patriota, Head of International Affairs at Brazil’s Ministry of Development and Family Farming, highlighted mounting challenges facing family farmers. They stressed that climate finance must reach smallholder farmers and their organizations more effectively. The leaders warned that the farmers most exposed to climate risks remain among the least supported. Only a small share of climate finance currently reaches smallholder farmers and their organizations directly.
Family farmers are experiencing firsthand the impacts of climate change across Asia and Africa. Communities in both regions are confronting climate variability and rising production costs. Concerns are growing about the effects of El Niño on rainfall patterns and floods. These conditions are leading to increasing damages on crops, fisheries, livestock and critical infrastructure. Family farmers produce more than half of the world’s food calories, including commodities such as coffee, cocoa and rice consumed around the world.
Across regions, farmers and producer organizations are advancing agroecological and nature-positive approaches that strengthen resilience while supporting biodiversity, healthy soils and sustainable livelihoods. These approaches can reduce dependence on costly external inputs and improve soil health. They also enhance water retention and increase resilience to climate extremes. For more than a decade, IUCN has worked alongside forest and farm producer organizations through initiatives such as the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF). This experience has demonstrated that farmer organizations are often best placed to identify and scale local climate resilience and landscape restoration solutions.
Despite growing recognition of food systems and agriculture in climate action, only 0.36% of international climate finance for adaptation reaches smallholder farmers and their organizations directly. To address this gap, members of the Family Farmers for Climate Action alliance called for the creation of a Farmers’ Resiliency and Empowerment Fund. The proposed mechanism seeks to channel finance more directly to farmer organizations, cooperatives and producer associations. It aims to help overcome barriers that often prevent local actors from accessing international funding. As the leaders emphasized, smallholder farmers “are not simply beneficiaries of climate action. They are partners in delivering it.”
As countries prepare for the next phase of global climate negotiations and implementation of climate commitments, ensuring that finance reaches those on the frontlines of climate change will be essential. The message emerging from Bonn was clear and unified across regions. Supporting family farmers is not only a matter of equity but also an investment in global food security. It is equally an investment in resilient landscapes and a more sustainable future for all. The call from SB64 places smallholder farmers at the center of climate action.
