Smallholder Farmers at the Center of the COP31 Agenda

October 28, 2026 - 04:14

As the climate summit season approaches, the conversation around COP31 is shifting toward the people who feed much of the world but receive a small fraction of the money meant to help them adapt. Smallholder farmers, who manage roughly a third of the planet's farmland, are on the front lines of drought, flooding, and unpredictable seasons. Yet the finance that reaches them remains limited, slow, and often tangled in bureaucracy.

A central theme for the upcoming talks is how to change that. Negotiators and observers are pressing for adaptation funding to move directly to local producers rather than through layers of intermediaries. The argument is straightforward: a farmer who cannot afford drought-resistant seed or a reliable irrigation pump does not benefit from pledges announced thousands of miles away.

The rise of artificial intelligence is adding a new dimension to the debate. Precision tools, satellite crop monitoring, and mobile advisory services could give smallholders earlier warnings about pests and weather. But without electricity, connectivity, and training, those tools risk widening the gap between large commercial operations and family farms.

Delegates are also expected to revisit climate finance commitments, loss and damage arrangements, and the role of agri-food systems in national climate plans. For smallholder groups, the test of COP31 will be whether promises translate into money that reaches the field, and whether farmers have a real seat at the table when those decisions are made.