IFAD advocates for funding for small-holder farmers 

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has pledged to advocate for more climate adaptation funding for smallholder farmers in Uganda.

According to Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) annual Agricultural Survey, approximately 7.4 million households operate agricultural land and/or rear livestock. Within these agricultural households, 81 per cent of the adult members are mainly engaged in agricultural activities.

While speaking at Sheraton hotel, Donal Brown, the IFAD associate vice president for program management department, developing countries, said small farmers play a vital role in sustainable food systems on various continents of Africa and Asia; however, there is little funding allocated to them.

“You can’t do sustainable food systems; feed the world, ensure food security without smallholder farmers. Smallholder farmers are affected by climate change; if you need their food, you have to help them adapt. So, we need more money into adaptation for sustainable food systems,” he said during his visit to IFAD-funded farmers in northern Uganda and Kalangala island.

“We are a supervising entity for large global financial institutions like the Green Climate Fund, which is the largest global fund. We support countries like Uganda to put projects forward for the Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility, and the adaptation fund,” he said.

Brown said access to green financing is a great challenge for many farmers across the world. It is hard; there are a lot of rules but it is getting easier. We need to streamline bureaucracy and ensure some reforms in the Green Climate Fund to make it simpler and easier for countries to access money.

Last week, the Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Dubai launched a fund for loss and damage that was agreed last year. There were a number of pledges to the fund. The UK pledged $75 million, the UAE $100 million, among other countries. The problem with climate finance in the past is that 95% of it or more was for mitigation not adaptation, and it was not for agriculture.

Brown stated that if we are to feed this world, we have to feed it in a different way that doesn’t have a negative environmental impact, but also that adapts to climate change to ensure that we continue to produce the much needed food.

He urged smallholder farmers to prioritize drought-resistant crops that are less dependent on irrigation and rainfall such as millet and sorghum. Millet and sorghum are extremely good, drought tolerant crops but everyone grows maize now. We need to go back to drought-resistant crops and conservation of water for irrigation purposes.

He said the IFAD funded the project in northern Uganda to help in rebuilding the livelihoods of the communities affected by war and getting people into commercial agriculture has been successful.