Small-scale forest and farm producers are building climate resilience in their communities and with the right support can make a difference at scale to maintaining forest and farm landscapes in the face of climate change.

The message came this week at the close of the International Conference for Sharing and Learning with Forest and Farm Producer Organizations, organised by the Vietnam Farmers’ Union (VNFU) and the FAO-hosted Forest and Farm Facility (FFF).

Delegates from 32 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America – including government officials and forest and farm producer organization representatives – took part in the five-day long conference, held under the theme ‘Saving our Future: Investing in locally-led diversification for climate resilience and food security’.

The conference provided a common understanding of challenges faced by grassroots organizations and shared lessons learnt on developing climate-resilience business models, for example through the diversification of seeds, value chains, products, financing mechanisms and markets.

“When forest and farm producer smallholders come together to work collectively, they can be powerful agents of change,” said Ewald Rametsteiner Deputy Director of FAO’s Forestry Division.

The conference provided a rare opportunity for smallholders from all over the world, some from remote areas, to network, learn from each other and build a unified grassroots voice.

Sustainable financing

Collectively, 1.5 billion forest and farm smallholders supply at least one-third of the world’s food on just 12% of its agricultural land. But while total international climate finance for developing countries has exceeded US$70 billion annually since 2017, as little as 10% of global funds reach the local level, with just 1.7% accessible to locally controlled organisations.

Innovative finance models were an important subject of discussion during the event, and the conference heard from successful microfinancing programmes and indigenous territorial funds.

“The conference clearly recognized the need to direct sustainable financing, in the short and long term, to small-scale family farmers through their producer organizations in order to strengthen their role as advocates and service providers to their members, and to address crises,” said Sophie Grouwels, FAO country coach for FFF. “In addition, more must be done to help those organizations access global finance and boost climate resilience,” she added.