It is almost a year since the Paris agreement was made by world leaders to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial temperatures. With 2015 marking the hottest year since records began and disasters from floods, droughts, storms and pests occurring more frequently, this year’s United Nations conference on climate change, COP22, is likely to see campaigners pushing for further action and investment.
This is particularly necessary for the millions of farmers around the world who rely on agriculture for their livelihoods and who are among the worst affected. For example, over recent years coffee farmers have seen crops wiped out by pests and diseases caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon. And a recent report from the Climate Institute and Fairtrade Australia (pdf) warned that 50% of the world’s current coffee producing land will disappear by 2050 as temperatures rise, affecting the quality and ultimately threatening the very survival of the plant.
Many countries which depend on coffee exports as a main plank of the economy are also among the most vulnerable to climate risk. Prime coffee origins such as Honduras, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Guatemala rank in the top 10 for climate-related damages since the 1990s. On top of this, because farmers continue to receive low prices for their coffee they are not able to invest in training, tools or other interventions to lessen the impacts of climate change. But by changing the way they farm there are ways to mitigate against some of these problems.
Fairtrade has been working with farmers to reduce carbon emissions and become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, through projects run under its Fairtrade Climate Standard and Fairtrade Carbon Credits scheme, developed in partnership with the internationally recognised Gold Standard.
These projects, which can be as simple as planting new trees or switching to renewable energy sources, are enabling communities to have a positive impact on the environment and helping them to withstand future shocks. By reducing their own emissions farmers can also generate “carbon credits” that can be sold to companies and raise further capital for investment in sustainable agriculture.
One project to support farmers, with funding from the Big Lottery, has seen a Kenyan farming community benefit from “green energy” biogas cook stoves for their homes, which reduce people’s exposure to smoke and the time they spend collecting firewood. It saves significant costs too, as it is powered by cow dung and creates byproducts which can be used as organic fertiliser on the farm.
Zeddy Rotich, a coffee farmer who is benefiting from this project, said: “I used to wake up early in the morning and fetch firewood first. So my children would get to school late, and I would also go to my coffee farm late, but now, with the use of the stove, my children get to school very early in the morning and I also go to my coffee farm very early in the morning, because the stove is very efficient. It is cost-free, it is hygienic, and it has got very many advantages over the other old method of cooking using firewood.
“Through Fairtrade we have received training on climate change and we are taking action. However, we still need more support on training, because we need to train other people who are not aware about climate change. We also need more tree nursery beds, so that we can plant more trees as a way of tackling climate change. We also need more biogas stoves, especially in the community, so that each and every member will be using stove. That one will help prevent cutting more trees and it will preserve the environment.”
It is time businesses scaled up their efforts to help smallholder farmers in supply chains access the finance they need to become more resilient and adapt their farming methods – at Fairtrade we hope this year’s COP22 in November provides the impetus to make this a reality.
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