Financing Large-Scale Mitigation by Smallholder Farmers: What Roles for Public Climate Finance?

Abstract

There is increasing interest in accessing climate finance to support low-emission, climate resilient agricultural development, but little is understood about how climate finance can be deployed to catalyze large-scale adoption of mitigation practices by smallholder farmers. This study assesses the potential roles of public climate finance in enabling smallholder farmers in Kenya's dairy sector to adopt low-emission farming practices. Drawing on multiple studies conducted as part of the design of a nationally appropriate mitigation action for the Kenyan dairy sector, it examines financing needs, institutional arrangements for channeling climate finance, and appropriate financial instruments. The study finds that financially profitable investments can be made by dairy farmers, but credit financing on commercial terms is not viable for dairy farmers lacking off-farm income sources. Dairy farmers make little use of formal financial institutions for several reasons, and while financial institutions have a strong interest in increasing their finance to the dairy sector, they face a variety of capacity constraints. Climate finance may have roles to play in strengthening linkages between dairy farmers and financial institutions, building capacities of different actors in the dairy and finance sectors, and enabling both farmers and financial institutions to manage risks. Concessional loans, credit guarantee funds and grants are all relevant financial instruments. If agriculture is to attract climate finance in support of large-scale mitigation action, a diversified, demand-responsive approach to financial innovation is required that engages different types of financial institution to support access to both savings and credit services tailored to the varied needs of men and women dairy farmers and the dairy value chain actors they work with.

Psychological impact of coronavirus disease on nurses exposed and non-exposed to disease

“…Our study found a lower rate of depression, anxiety, and stress than a recent study did among Jordanian healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Odhong et al, 2019 ). This finding might be attributed to the variations in sample size and study settings between the previous study and ours.…”

“…Frontline healthcare workers, particularly nurses, are prone to emotional instability because they are dealing with proven cases of COVID-19 ( Spoorthy, Pratapa, & Mahant, 2020 ). A cross-sectional study in Jordan investigated the psychological well-being of frontline healthcare professionals and discovered a significant prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression (53.8, 52.9, and 66.2%, respectively) ( Odhong et al, 2019 ). Age, gender, experience, availability of personal protection equipment, resilience, and maladaptive coping were correlated with the psychological problems among healthcare workers ( Odhong et al, 2019 , Pappa et al, 2020 , Spoorthy et al, 2020 ).…”

The importance of food systems in a climate crisis for peace and security in the Sahel

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Addressing variation in smallholder farming systems to improve dairy development in Kenya

“…In general, fodder production is constrained by availability of seeds, land, labour, capital, and skills, while feed marketing is constrained by unfunctional value chains (Ericksen and Crane, 2017;Lukuyu et al, 2013;Mutoko et al, 2014;Romney et al, 2003). Fodder supply can be improved by improving farmers' skills through training and extension, and by improving access to credit facilities, seeds and markets (Ericksen and Crane, 2017;Klapwijk et al, 2014;Odhong' et al, 2019). As a rule of thumb, the addition of 1 kg DM of concentrates of good quality is expected to increase milk production by 2 kg, and it is always economical to use concentrates to increase productivity if the price of milk is good and farmers can sell the milk (Moran, 2005b).…”

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