Across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers are confronting the challenges of climate change. Many of them were already struggling, and now the surge of extreme weather the world has experienced over the past few years is damaging and even destroying their sole means of survival. Working to secure a better life for their families while providing their communities with access to affordable, nutritious food, they actively seek ways to adapt and succeed. Already, innovations that boost resilience to new weather patterns are enabling farmers to improve food security for their communities. For example, in Ethiopia, a wheat rust early warning system has helped farmers avoid millions of dollars in losses to climate-sensitive crop disease. African farmers in many countries are growing a host of new, naturally stress-tolerant varieties of maize, beans, sweet potatoes, rice, and cassava.
Nevertheless, the gap between farmers’ aspirations and the resources available to support them continues to widen. Climate models reveal that Africa and much of Southeast Asia, where small family farms are the main source of both food and jobs, face a devastating drop in food production that could provoke globe-shaking spikes in poverty, malnutrition, and economic inequality.
