COP30 has become a historic turning point. For the first time in a climate summit, just transition is at the center of the agenda and it is recognized that there will not be an effective climate transition without transforming agri-food systems. The adoption of the Belém Leaders’ Declaration on Hunger, Poverty and People-Centered Climate Action, which places the human right to food as a guiding principle and recognizes the essential role of families and small producers, represents an unprecedented milestone.
Although food security appears as a priority in the Paris Agreement, agriculture and food have remained on the sidelines of climate negotiations for years. A contradiction: agriculture is one of the sectors most affected by global warming and, at the same time, one of the sectors that can provide the greatest number of environmental mitigation, adaptation and restoration solutions.
Brazil, host country of this COP in Belém, at the gateway to the Amazon, chairs the summit with an experience that demonstrates what happens when family farming, social protection and environmental conservation are integrated into the same vision of development. In a country that has nearly five million family farms, employs more than 10.1 million people, and has managed to remove Brazil from the world hunger map and reduce extreme poverty by 63 percent between 2004 and 2014, his presidency has placed food security, sustainable agriculture and just transition at the center of the global climate agenda. Policies like Zero Hunger, programs like Bolsa Familia, public purchases from small producers or progress in reducing deforestation have shown that inclusive rural development and sustainability can reinforce each other.
On a global scale, the reality is alarming: between 638 and 720 million people will suffer from hunger in 2024 and more than 2.4 billion will suffer from moderate or severe food insecurity. Added to this is that food systems generate around a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. No climate strategy that ignores this reality will be sufficient. And no transition can be considered just if it does not guarantee the right to food and does not contribute to overcoming rural poverty, where the majority of those who feed the world live.
Agriculture is one of the sectors most affected by global warming and, at the same time, one of the sectors that can provide the greatest number of solutions in terms of mitigation, adaptation and environmental restoration.
In developing countries, family farmers face dual vulnerabilities: the growing impact of extreme weather and the virtually non-existent climate finance they receive. Today, agri-food systems absorb only 4.3% of global climate finance and small producers just 0.3%. This gap isn’t just unfair; It’s a missed opportunity. Every euro invested in family farming generates simultaneous benefits in terms of resilience, food security, nutrition, biodiversity and carbon capture.
The challenge now is not to justify the transformation, but to convert the Belém Declaration into real investments that transform agri-food systems and strengthen the resilience of those on the front lines of climate change. Political commitments already exist; What is missing is the volume of funding and the coherence of its design.
To close this gap it is necessary to definitively close the gap between climate finance and development finance. For decades they have operated in silos, limiting their impact. But a just climate transition requires integrated financial architectures, capable of acting simultaneously on resilience, climate, economic inclusion and food security.
The reality on a global scale is alarming: between 713 and 757 million people will suffer from hunger in 2023 and over 2.4 billion will suffer from moderate or severe food insecurity
In this context, the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) is an effective example. With nearly $2.5 billion mobilized since 2010, it has improved the income and food security of more than 30 million people in low-income countries, and nearly half of its projects have directly contributed to increasing resilience to climate change. However, even this scale is insufficient for a global challenge of this scale. There is a need to engage governments, multilateral banks, climate funds, philanthropy and the private sector in a much more ambitious way.
In parallel with COP30, GAFSP is advancing its Strategic Vision 2030, designed to serve as a permanent bridge between development and climate. Its goal is to ensure that the world’s 800 million smallholder farmers have access to finance, innovation, markets, technology, connectivity and public policies that enable them to drive the climate transition and rural prosperity. It’s not just about including them: it’s about recognizing them as protagonists, as the heart of the solution.
With the Belém Declaration already adopted, the focus must be on implementation: integrated financing packages for climate development, public-private investment platforms, expansion of public purchasing for family farming, incentives for forest and soil conservation, strengthening cooperatives and producer organizations, and inclusive data systems that ensure transparency and traceability.
All of this requires real coordination between governments, multilateral development banks, climate funds, the private sector and civil society. But above all we need to listen to and finance those who are already generating solutions: millions of family producers practicing regenerative agriculture, crop diversification, agroforestry or sustainable water management. Their daily practices constitute one of the greatest climate resources on the planet.
We are facing a decisive moment. This COP30 explicitly recognizes that without transforming agri-food systems there will be no climate transition and that without guaranteeing the right to food there will be no just transition. The Belém Declaration sets a new standard. Now is the time to turn this into concrete actions on the ground through long-term investments.
If the international community acts coherently, this summit could usher in a decade in which climate, food and development are part of the same global project. A decade in which family producers finally take their rightful place: the center of food and nutrition security and global climate action.
