This year’s United Nations International Year is dedicated towards acknowledging the global importance of family farming! Family farming is the predominant form of agriculture worldwide. It includes small to medium-scale farmers, peasants, indigenous peoples and many other groups around the world that predominantly rely on family labour.
Family farmers play an important role in increasing agricultural productivity, achieving world food security but also alleviating poverty. They provide 70% of the world’s food production! Thanks to family farmers, the world’s agro-biodiversity is preserved and a balanced diet is safeguarded as they maintain crop-diversification and preserve traditional food products. Those are vital reasons to reposition family farming at the centre of agricultural, environmental and social policies to facilitate access to land, water and natural resources for them.
Going beyond poverty alleviation and food security, family farmers also have a great potential in preserving forests and reducing deforestation. Yet, the bottleneck is often the lack of funding to start sustainable forest management. Carbon credits can serve as a start-up financing!
myclimate supports two projects of small-scale farmer communities in Nicaragua and Uganda which depend on subsistence agriculture. Thanks to carbon finance, the family farmers are supported in developing sustainably managed woodlots on underutilized portions of their land to mitigate and adapt to climate change while at the same time increasing their income.