Thriving in diversity: smallholders organising for climate resilience

With their ability to mobilise 1.5 billion smallholder producers, forest and farm producer organisations (FFPOs) can help drive a paradigm shift away from large-scale monocultural systems, which are vulnerable to climate change and highly inequitable. FFPO businesses embody greater diversity and equity, pursuing market opportunities for a diverse basket of their members’ products. Rather than focus on profit maximisation alone, they have a wide set of environmental, social and economic goals. And because diversity and equity are fundamental for climate resilience at local and global scales, strengthening FFPOs is integral to delivering urgent, bold and equitable climate change adaption and mitigation actions. Public and private sectors alike must therefore provide: the necessary technical and business support, access to finance and support for cross-sectoral policies to scale up FFPO-led climate adaptation actions.