To Feed a Warming World, COP31 Must Rethink Agricultural Climate Finance

Resumen detallado

At COP31, governments should prioritize diversified farming and land restoration in their plans and help farmers finance the transition.

As El Niño threatens harvests worldwide, investing in diversified farming and restoring degraded land makes economic sense, protecting both farmers’ livelihoods and improving food security.

A farm can produce a bumper harvest one year and lose everything to drought or floods the next. Salvadoran farmer Nery Osorio knows that danger well. On his one-hectare hillside farm in El Salvador’s drought-prone Dry Corridor, he once grew only maize and beans. When those crops failed, he recalls, “we lost everything.”

Today, he grows maize alongside beans, cassava, vegetables and fruit trees. He also raises cows and goats, selling milk for additional income. A failed maize harvest would still hurt, but his other crops and milk sales give his family something to fall back on.

His experience suggests that, in a hotter, less predictable world, agricultural success should be judged by what a farm can withstand as much as by what it produces.

In 2025, 87.5 million people faced acute food insecurity in countries where weather extremes were the primary driver of food crises, nearly three times the reported number in 2018. Now, an El Niño that the World Meteorological Organization warns could be unprecedented in strength is disrupting rainfall, bringing drought to some regions and floods to others, against the backdrop of a warming climate. It offers a preview of the volatility farmers must prepare for as temperatures rise.

In Honduras, El Niño-related drought has already damaged maize harvests among small-scale farmers. In South and Southeast Asia, rice crops are suffering and India’s sugarcane harvest is at risk, while below-average rainfall linked to the naturally recurring climate pattern threatens southern Africa’s next maize-growing season.

Diversity is one of farmers’ strongest defenses against these extremes. Different crops and varieties withstand different conditions; trees provide shade, protect soils and supply fruit or fodder; and livestock offer another source of food and…

Osori…

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