Climate finance is top of the agenda at this year’s UN climate conference. Governments are expected to agree on a new long-term climate finance package to deal with worsening biodiversity collapse and the climate crisis.

Phasing out fossil fuels also requires funding the transition away from industrial, fossil-fuel based food systems to agroecology and regenerative approaches. We need to see billions more pour into changing how we produce and consume food. This is cheaper than what’s currently spent on harmful agricultural subsidies every year. In an article for Common Dreams, Global Alliance’s Deputy Director Lauren Baker and Global Alliance members, Jane Maland Cady, McKnight Foundation, and Michael Kwame Nkonu, IKEA Foundation, explain why we need to scale up funding for agroecology. Read an excerpt of the article below.

This year climate finance is all the talk. As the UN Climate Conference in Bonn wraps up and the stage is set for COP29 later this year, expectations are high for governments to agree on a new climate finance package that will tackle the worsening climate and ecological crises.

In many countries, food production is the climate frontline. Nearly 95% of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) include adaptation and mitigation actions in the agriculture sector yet fail to address the full food system.

It only takes one climate disaster—a drought, flood or heatwave—for entire villages to spiral into debt, poverty and hunger, impacting regional food systems and economies.

Responding to the climate and nature crises, will require a transformation of food systems backed by a rapid redirection of funds to flip agriculture from being part of the problem to offering solutions. Last year, 25 philanthropies—coordinated by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food—called for a tenfold increase in funding towards agroecological and regenerative approaches. Philanthropy, multilateral and bilateral organizations and governments must scale and align funding to catalyze a transition to 50% regenerative and agroecological systems by 2040 and to ensure all agriculture and food systems are transitioning by 2050.

Right now, industrialized food systems account for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions and at least 15% of fossil fuel use. This broken system—the ‘true cost’ of food production—comes at a staggering $12 trillion a year, according to the FAO last year. It manifests in hefty medical bills and the degradation of our soil, air, water, and biodiversity.

Read the full article on Common Dreams’ website

Read the Cultivating Change report to learn more about scaling up finance to agroecology