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Public Climate Finance for Food Systems Transformation (2024)

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November 2024

In 2022, the Global Alliance released a report uncovering a critical gap in climate finance for food systems. Food systems are responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis disproportionately impacts smallholder farmers, fishers, pastoralists, and Indigenous Peoples who are on the frontlines of the crisis. But only a small fraction of climate finance—less than 3%—was being allocated to fix food systems. This gap highlighted an urgent need to put food systems at the center of climate action and climate funding.

This 2024 update of Public Climate Finance for Food Systems Transformation shows that despite an overall increase in climate finance between 2017 and 2022, the portion of funding for food systems has slipped further, down from 3% to 2.5%, and even further when we consider sustainable food systems, at just 1.5%. This report underscores the urgent need to significantly boost climate finance for sustainable food systems and calls attention to the need for funding to reach communities.

AN ASSESSMENT OF FOOD SYSTEMS

Public Climate Finance for Food Systems Transformation

A report offering recommendations to address the underfunding of food systems in climate finance.
Read the Report
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Even as overall public climate finance has increased between 2017 and 2022, the portion going towards food systems has fallen from 3% to 2.5% during this time. Furthermore, public climate finance towards sustainable food systems is even smaller at just 1.5% This calls for an urgent scaling up of public funding to address the impacts of the climate crisis on frontline communities and to tackle emissions from food systems which are contributing to climate chaos. 

  • The climate crisis hits food systems hard, by threatening livelihoods, destabilizing food production, and disrupting supply chains. Food systems are responsible for one-third of global emissions and 15% of fossil fuel use globally each year.
  • The hidden costs of our current industrial food systems are approximately USD 12 trillion annually, according to the latest FAO report.
  • Between 2017 and 2022, public climate finance almost doubled, going from USD 321 billion to USD 640 billion. However, the portion of climate finance for food systems fell from 3% (see our 2022 report) to 2.5% during the same period.
  • Within this, the portion going towards sustainable food systems was even smaller at 1.5%
    Of the USD 16.3 billion of public climate finance that flowed to food systems, only USD 9.1 billion could be labeled as ‘sustainable’ based on our definition and keyword analysis.
  • The USD 16.3 billion currently allocated to food systems from public climate finance is significantly below the cost of transition to sustainable food systems estimated at USD 500 billion per year.
  • In 2025, updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) must outline clear plans to address food systems transformation and ensure finance is redirected away from harmful subsidies (currently at USD 670 billion a year) toward sustainable food systems that work for people and the planet.
  • To unlock the mitigation and adaptation potential in food systems while contributing to biodiversity, food sovereignty, and sustainable development around the world, climate finance — both public and private — must increase by ten times and flow directly to underinvested climate solutions and communities: smallholder farmers, fishers, pastoralists, Indigenous communities, and to implement inclusive and equitable policies and governance.
  • Investment is needed across all areas of food systems. Resources need to flow to transform agricultural practices and production, build resilience of small-scale food producers, promote healthier diets, address food loss and waste, and support inclusive and equitable governance.
  • Transforming food systems could provide at least USD 5 trillion a year in economic benefits. These benefits result from reductions in the unaccounted costs of food systems, including a shift to sustainable production in agriculture reversing biodiversity loss, reducing demand for irrigation water, reducing nitrogen use, restoring and protecting ecosystems, and reducing food systems emissions.