Farmers must be front of the line for climate compensation after COP29. Here's why

After the last UN climate talks in Dubai were dubbed the “Food COP”, it makes sense that COP29 focuses on finance. The food and agriculture sector is frequently the hardest hit by the worsening impacts of climate change, with droughts, floods and heatwaves undermining food production and food security, causing devastating economic losses.

This year’s talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, therefore present a pivotal opportunity to build on the historic Loss and Damage Fund agreed in 2023 to compensate the countries that are simultaneously most dependent on agriculture and exposed to climate risks not of their own making.

An estimated $3.8 trillion worth of crops and livestock have been lost due to disaster events in the past 30 years, equivalent to $123 billion per year. These losses have not been fairly distributed: The highest relative losses have been inflicted on lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs), ranging between 10 and 15% of their total agricultural GDP.

Even more than impacting economies, crop and livestock losses from disasters have cascading impacts on food security, health, water and environment, especially in vulnerable rural communities. From 2008 to 2018, agricultural losses to disasters in LMICs averaged 6.9 trillion kilocalories per year, equivalent to 7 million adults’ caloric intake. In Latin America and the Caribbean, this was a loss of 975 calories per day, or 40% of an adult’s recommended daily allowance, followed by Africa (559 / 23%) and Asia (283 / 12%).

Disaster events are also becoming worse and more commonplace, increasing fivefold in the past 50 years. With populations in some of the poorest and most food-insecure nations projected to grow the most in the time to 2050, decisive action must be taken now. Otherwise, we risk communities and entire nations becoming permanently trapped in the cycle of climate destruction and recovery, entirely dependent on international food aid.

Crop yields are suffering and will continue to plummet without support for farmers struggling to cope with the impacts of climate change. Already, projections show rice yields in Asia could drop by as much as 50% by the end of the century, while its population is forecast to remain largely the same.

The Loss and Damage Fund, however, has the potential to correct the present imbalance, ensuring food security and keeping farmers in business. In LMICs – where agriculture makes up an average of 25% of national GDP and directly employs as much as 35% of the population – smallholder farmers should be the ultimate recipients of support. With more financial support, smallholder farmers can access improved seeds, training and climate-resilient technologies to increase productivity and better withstand intensifying droughts, floods, cyclones and other climate-related shocks.

This, in turn, strengthens food security, reduces poverty and fosters economic growth. Agriculture can serve as the backbone of more climate-resilient rural economies and catalyze growth in adjacent sectors, such as transportation, processing and retail, thereby creating broader economic stability and development.

To realize these gains, climate finance must be guided by evidence and data. The science already exists: Climate attribution research can successfully identify the extent to which human-induced climate change influences specific extreme weather events and patterns. By pinpointing climate change as a driver of specific floods, droughts, heatwaves and other weather events impacting agriculture, cutting-edge research can quantify the impacts of climate change on agriculture.

Attribution science can not only inform compensation claims and financial aid in vulnerable nations and regions, but also enhance our understanding of long-term damage in agricultural systems and inform targeted adaptation strategies. United Nations studies have already demonstrated yield losses of 2-10% in wheat yields in Morocco and Kazakhstan, and maize in South Africa.

But this research has its limits. There are important data gaps for many rural agricultural communities, where robust climate monitoring and historical records are lacking at present. This scarcity of localized, high-quality data hinders the precision of attribution studies in some of the regions worst affected by climate change, limiting researchers’ ability to accurately assess and quantify loss and damage in these areas.

However, tools exist to help plug data gaps by providing cutting-edge methodologies, improved metrics and tailored climate information systems. For example, CGIAR collaborates with national agricultural research systems and local partners around the world to collect and analyze climate data in underserved regions. Upscaling initiatives such as these to improve monitoring systems and curate specialized tools for real-time loss and damage tracking will be integral to pinpointing where finance will deliver the most significant rehabilitative impact.

As global leaders convene at COP29 and discuss where resources from the Loss and Damage Fund are to be prioritized, farmers must be at the forefront. By channelling resources strategically, we can ensure an equitable transition to sustainable food systems, reducing emissions and building resilience against future climate shocks simultaneously. Leaders must recognize that climate justice means prioritizing those who bear the greatest burden while contributing the least to global emissions, and ensuring no one is left behind.