I’m a Farmer. Listen to Me When We Say We Need Climate Finance

“[A]s I found out, a little money to buffer them through the transition, combined with some education, is all it takes. My journey enabled me to understand that the future of our food and our survival lies within farmers,” writes Anand Ethirajalu, a programme director at Save Soil.

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This World Soil Day, I call for climate finance to be diverted to farmers on behalf of the Save Soil Movement. 

The reason is quite simple. Our agricultural soils are potentially one of the most effective carbon sinks on the planet. There is more carbon in our soils than in the world’s vegetation and the atmosphere combined. 

Yet around the world, our soils are being degraded at an alarming rate; around 40% of the world’s land is already degraded. Degraded soils not only lose their ability to produce food. They become far less effective at sequestering and storing carbon. 

Degraded soils also cannot retain moisture. This makes it difficult for farms to cope with climate risks like floods, heatwaves and drought, all of which result in heavy crop losses and enormous waste of fuel, labor and time.

Both the problem and the solution lie with farmers. I know this first-hand. 

At the age of 15, I was given a school project. Little did I know that this school project would go on to define my life’s work. 

The school project was all about adulterants in food, where I learnt the extent to which our foods in India were altered. That evening, my head was swirling as I sat around the dinner table. 

I looked down at my plate and saw my food differently. I realized that my rice was laced with Silica, my sugar was laced with sulfur, my vegetables were laced with carcinogenic pesticides, my fruits were laced with post-harvest ripening agents, my tea was laced with dung powder, and my coffee with Tamarind seeds. 

This felt counter-intuitive to me. Food is supposed to nourish us, not poison us. How could we get something so fundamental, so wrong? 

My interest in food science stayed with me. Soon after this, my father and I decided to buy a piece of land and convert it into a food garden. 

I later took up Plant Biology as my major in college to get a deeper understanding of plant life and the carbon cycle. My father resigned from his job to become a full-time farmer alongside me.

We decided that we wanted to be self-sufficient and create healthy, nutritious, chemical-free food. Without any formal training, I dived head-first into the traditional farming techniques that had no need for synthetic fertilizers.

After three years, the farm had become fully functional. We grew everything from rice and vegetables to oils and spices. We often had surplus stock, which I would leave outside my home with a simple collection jar next to a weighing scale reading “pay as you like.” I was astounded at how much people were willing to pay for high-quality, organic food. I used this extra money to travel across India on my Royal Enfield to meet and learn from pioneers in this field by staying at their farms. 

My realization was simple; farmers can live like kings if they understand regenerative farming and basic marketing. 

I begun helping hundreds of local farmers to make the same transition, away from intensive, pesticide-heavy agriculture to a diverse, regenerative approach under the leadership of Dr. G. Nammalvar, who is considered the father of organic farming in South India.

The benefits were plentiful. Farmers preserved and restored their soils, which ensured the long-term sustainability of their plots. Equally, by diversifying their crops, they became more financially robust. If one crop failed, they were saved by other crops. 

In rainy seasons, healthier soil can retain more moisture, making them more resilient to floods. The same is true of the dryer seasons, healthier soils retain more moisture during periods of drought. 

Of course, the reason for India’s increasingly erratic rainfall lies with man-made climate change. Beyond the economic benefits of regenerative farming, this practice means that our soils can sequester and store vast amounts of carbon. 

We might ask, with all of these benefits, why don’t all farmers make the transition today? The answer is straight-forward: money. 

Small and marginal farmers – those farming agricultural land of up to 2 hectares – constitute 80% of the farmers across the globe and produce 30% of the world’s food. Yet they receive less than 1% of climate finance. Agriculture and food systems as a sector receive less than 4% of the climate finance.

The shift to regenerative farming requires support during the transition period, when crops are most vulnerable to pest and diseases and farmers are learning all about the new agricultural approach.

Farmer incomes are already dangerously precarious. Their margins are razor-thin, and many get ripped off when selling their products to market. One small setback can cost their family’s livelihood. 

However, as I found out, a little money to buffer them through the transition, combined with some education, is all it takes.  

My journey enabled me to understand that the future of our food and our survival lies within farmers.

This is why Save Soil, along with other leading NGOs, are calling for a simple range of policy suggestions. These include making climate finance more accessible for farmers adopting regenerative practices, creating supportive policies for adopting sustainable land practices, mobilizing investment in soil regeneration, and integrating soil restoration into climate finance. 

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification turns 30 this year, and their major conference, UNCCD COP16, currently underway in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Let us make use of this, and not wait another 30 years to see our lands turn into deserts.

Supporting our farmers in their transition to regenerative agriculture is one of the smartest investments we can make for a better tomorrow. What are we waiting for?

Featured image: International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center/Flickr.

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