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There is a growing consensus that climate change is transforming the context for rural
development, changing physical and socio-economic landscapes and making
smallholder development more expensive. But there is less consensus on how
smallholder agriculture practices should change as a result. The question is often asked:
what really is different about ‘climate-smart’ smallholder agriculture that goes beyond
regular best practice in development? This article suggests three major changes:
• First, project and policy preparation need to reflect higher risks, where
vulnerability assessments and greater use of climate scenario modelling are
combined with a better understanding of interconnections between smallholder
farming and wider landscapes.
• Second, this deeper appreciation of interconnected risks should drive a major
scaling up of successful ‘multiple-benefit’ approaches to sustainable agricultural
intensification by smallholder farmers. These approaches can build climate
resilience through managing competing land-use systems at the landscape level,
while at the same time reducing poverty, enhancing biodiversity, increasing yields
and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
• Third, climate change and fiscal austerity are reshaping the architecture of public
(and potentially private) international development finance. This calls for: (i) new
efforts to enable smallholder farmers to become significant beneficiaries of
climate finance in order to reward multiple-benefit activities and help offset the
transition costs and risks of changing agricultural practices; and (ii) better ways to
achieve and then measure a wider range of multiple benefits beyond traditional
poverty and yield impacts.
IFAD is actively helping developing countries make these changes according to their
differing needs and circumstances. These changes underpin IFAD’s various new policy
and institutional frameworks, such as the Environment and Natural Resource
Management Policy, the Climate Change Strategy, the initiative on climate finance for
smallholder farmers (Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme) and the
IFAD Strategic Framework 2011-2015.

source:abstract