Satu Santala, the new Associate
Vice-President of External Relations and Governance.of the UN's
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), has said
that the people who produce our food need to have a bigger say
at global forums, such as the recent COP26 Climate Conference in
Glasgow.
She stressed that this would help make food production more
sustainable and benefit the whole world, not just smallholder
farmers in developing countries.
"Food is one of the defining issues of our time, particularly
because of the pressures coming from climate change and loss of
biodiversity. Yet the rural people who produce our food are too
often side-lined in global development processes," said Santala
who joins the Rome-based food agency specialised in helping
rural communities after previously serving as the
Director-General for Development Policy at Finland's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
Rural small-scale farmers are estimated to produce one third of
global food.
They are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters and
erratic weather, yet they receive only 1.7% of climate finance.
A recent report released by IFAD, one of three Rome-based UN
food agencies along with the FAO and the WFP, predicts that
staple crops in eight African countries would decline by up to
80% by mid-century if temperatures continue to rise due to
climate change.
This could have a catastrophic impact on poverty and food
availability unless there is an urgent injection of funding to
help vulnerable farmers adapt how and what they farm.
"Food links everyone on the planet together. So it is not just
about rural people in poor countries, but it is also about how
we build food systems that are sustainable for all of us," said
Santala.
IFAD is the only global development organization that works
exclusively on eradicating poverty and hunger in rural areas,
with a dedicated fund to help small-scale farmers adapt to
climate change.
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