The intertwined crises of climate change and biodiversity loss are hugely impacting the agricultural sector and the food production systems our society depends upon. Almost 1.3 billion people rely on forest and farm landscapes for their livelihoods, and the land degradation is causing persistent rural poverty and inequality.

In order to reverse this trend, a massive opportunity lies in the contribution of smallholder farmers, who supply at least one-third of the world’s food. FFPOs can mobilise 1.5 billion smallholder producers to jointly act towards climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience and aggregate the efforts to increase biodiverse agriculture, agroforestry and natural forests. Strengthening FFPOs through long term partnerships and channelling more climate finance directly to these groups is therefore a game changer for climate, biodiversity and food system action.

This meeting was the first of a series during which options and solutions to change the current climate, biodiversity and development aid model were discussed. The aim is to reverse the trend and get a big proportion of international finance to the ground, where change needs to happen in a way that is relevant for rural communities.

Various examples and success stories were presented during the meeting. To learn more about them, download the report.