Smallholder farmers are filling climate adaptation gaps from their own income, finds survey

Smallholder farmers are among the most vulnerable groups to climate change. According to a recent survey report, smallholder producers spend their own income to adapt to climate change impacts. 

Smallholder forest and farm producers allocate an average of 20-40 per cent of their annual income toward adapting to climate change, found a survey report by a funding platform supporting farmers, Forest and Farm Facility and policy research institute International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). 

Nearly all smallholder farmers have experienced two or more distinct forms of climate impacts, such as variations in temperature, variations in the length of the rainy season and rainfall and corresponding droughts and floods, in addition to an increase in the prevalence of pests and illnesses on farms.

Smallholder producers spend their own income to adapt to those impacts, often in ways that conserve biodiversity and build resilience, showed the survey. It encompassed more than 1,800 farmers across 13 countries, including three in Asia (not including India), seven in Africa and three in Latin America. 

On average, each farming household invests $838 per year to overcome climate change impact, the survey showed

. Of those surveyed, 27 per cent have invested more than 40 per cent of their annual income  on climate adaptation. Moreover, 10 per cent of smallholder farmers spent over 60 per cent of their yearly income on adaptation. 

The countries where smallholder farmers invested the least in climate adaptation — from 0-20 per cent— were Liberia, Madagascar, Nepal, Tanzania, Togo and Vietnam. On the other hand, the average investment made by farmers from Bolivia, China, Ecuador, Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia was 20-40 per cent. 

The highest investments in climate adaptation were in China, Ecuador, Ghana, Liberia and Zambia, spending 80 per cent of annual income on adaptation measures. The projected average yearly costs for smallholder households varies greatly between countries, from $159 in Tanzania to $2,470 in China.  

Considering the 439 million smallholder farmers worldwide, the report estimated they contribute an annual total of $368 billion to efforts to adapt to climate change. This exceeds the $230 million pledged by countries for the United Nations’s Adaptation Fund during the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change last year.

Actual cost of smallholders’ investment is likely to be much higher because these estimates do not consider the unpaid labour producers spend on these actions, the survey said. 

“Farmers working small plots of land around the globe are the unsung heroes of the battle to adapt to the climate and nature crises. Climate change has already had profound impacts on their ways of life,” Xiaoting Hou-Jones, a senior researcher at IIED, said in a statement. 

A third of a year spent on adaptation measures 

Each smallholder household implements these adaptation strategies for an average of 107 days annually, or almost one-third of the entire year, the survey found. Each year, 41 per cent of farmers dedicate more than 40 per cent of their farming time to putting these policies into action.

In comparison to other nations, smallholder producers in Nepal, Togo, and Vietnam invest less time and money in adaptation initiatives. Farmers in the remaining ten countries devote a large amount of their time and resources to adaptation strategies.

Some of the most commonly used nature-friendly approaches and adaptation measures taken up by farmers are changing farming hours and / or planting and harvesting schedules, taking part in adaptation training and managing pests, erosion and surface-water runoff.

Other approaches adopted are enhancing soils through ecosystem-based methods, safeguarding natural areas and expanding the variety of crops, trees, and animals on their property. Additionally, they have concentrated on the preservation and application of landraces, traditional species and animal breeds.

Lack of technical and financial support 

The IIED survey showed that collectively, millions of smallholder producers are mobilising billions of dollars annually into adaptation actions in the agriculture and forest sectors, dwarfing international public funding for adaptation. But not many of them are receiving the financial and even technical support they need. 

A separate analysis of farmer networks representing over 35 million small-scale producers in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific revealed that small-scale family farmers contribute significantly to the production of one-third of the world’s food. Despite this, just 0.3 per cent of international climate finance, or $2 billion in 2021, was set aside to support them.

In order to support the most vulnerable populations for climate adaptation, the UN Adaptation Gap report also recently stressed the need to raise spending on adaptation by ten to eighteen times.  

Under such circumstances, providing direct finance to and through Forest and Farm Producer Organisations is an effective way to support smallholder producers at scale, said the report, citing few pieces of evidence, which include a working paper and a few reports. However, public climate and nature finance are less accessible and appealing to FFPOs, it said. 

The survey, released ahead of the COP28, underscored the need for more innovative public and private financing models to ensure more finance can reach those organisations. This will help the FFPOs leverage the collective investment power of smallholder producers for more equitable, biodiverse and resilient forest and farm landscapes, said the IIED report.

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