In light of the growing movement across Asia advocating the transition from short-term survival to sustainable, profitable, and climate-smart family farming, over 18 national, regional, and global organizations belonging to the Family Farmers for Climate Action (FFCA) convened in Pasig, Metro Manila, from 2-6 March 2026 to discuss how the current financial architecture continues to fail the people who feed the world. 

The FORCE 2.0 workshop highlighted the uncomfortable statistic that smallholder farmers receive only about 0.3% of international climate finance. This blatant disparity demonstrates the urgent need to move beyond the global narrative of “victimhood” and instead empower farmers to take charge and demand direct access to climate funds.

At the heart of this event is the collective participation of national and global leaders representing more than 95 million small-scale family farmers around the world, whose engagement helped enrich the discussions and contextualize the challenges within the current global landscape. The gathering comes at a pivotal moment in climate finance, as both public and private initiatives increasingly shift from planning to implementation. One message stood out: farmers who are at the frontline of experiencing climate change must be involved in the global conversations about how international climate funds are accessed and used.

The global issue at hand

For decades, the smallholder farmers have always been affected by typhoons and droughts, resulting in several occasions of failed harvests. Being at the center of the “emergency response” agenda, where financial and livelihood aid comes only after a disaster, these farmers are pushing for a better system than a reactive climate financial structure, which is triggered only when disaster strikes, that fails to support and protect farmers.

While billions are pledged at high–level summits, 99.7% of these funds are often diverted to various infrastructure projects or are absorbed by the administrative layers of multilateral banks and international NGOs. It creates a bureaucratic bottleneck where funds often work in silos, leaving farmers to deal with insufficient access to finance to accommodate the need for grassroots climate adaptation.

“Additionally, the Indigenous Peoples of Asia Solidarity Fund (IPAS) highlighted the persistent underfunding of Indigenous-led initiatives, despite their critical role in environmental stewardship and climate resilience,” AFA.

For the family farmers, this is not just inefficiency but rather a systemic failure that leaves only 0.3% to support long-term and sustainable farming, in addition to the insufficiency of the emergency response agenda. The actual transition needed to secure our global food security is at stake.

From survival to prosperity

The workshop signaled a departure from traditional aid models, with the Asian Farmers’ Association (AFA) and its partners leading the campaign to push for a “Prosperity Agenda.”

This agenda centers on agroecology, a farming approach that works with nature rather than against it. By investing in soil health, biodiversity, and local seed systems, farmers are not just “surviving” the next storm. The farming community can build resilient and profitable livelihoods that sequester carbon and protect ecosystems.

Through the prosperity agenda, family farmers pivot from being victims of climate change to being active drivers of change, particularly in this economy and environment. It utilizes alternative farming practices to break the cycle of survival. For instance, the shift to local seed systems provides farmers with the opportunity to reclaim ownership of their primary resource, lowering production costs and ensuring that value stays in their own pocket.

The so-called “prosperity shift” highlights grassroots climate solutions as a primary practice to deal with the global issue at hand. However, moving from survival to prosperity requires capital that is currently blocked by a complex web of geopolitics and bureaucracy.

The geopolitical barrier

During the workshop, insights from experts like Red Constantino, a prominent climate advocate, shed light on why the 0.3% figure remains so stubbornly low. The “geopolitics of finance” has historically marginalized local communities. International funds often flow through massive multilateral banks and international NGOs, with “trickle-down” finance rarely reaching the soil.

According to the workshop, looking at the history, various factors have pushed farmers out of the financial frame, with complex application processes, stringent collateral requirements, and a lack of recognition for farmer-led institutions mean that the people with the most practical solutions are often the last to be funded.

A “take-charge” moment

FORCE 2.0 was framed not just as a training session, but as a “take-charge” moment. By consolidating the voices of the leaders and representatives from the 18 organizations present, they are moving from being passive recipients of aid to active drivers of change.

To move beyond the systemic deficiency, the workshop served as a platform to co-create and discuss strategies to access international climate finance, proposing various financial mechanisms to support the movement. The key takeaway is the need for it to be directly channeled to the Farmers’ Organizations (FOs) rather than through multiple layers of intermediaries.

By building the internal capacity to manage large-scale grants and investments, these organizations are proving they are bankable partners. They are developing their own climate tracking tools and financial management systems to ensure that when finance does flow, it reaches the grassroots level where it can do the most good.

The Call to Action: Direct access now

The conclusion of the FORCE 2.0 workshop was a collective demand for a systemic overhaul of how climate money is moved. The 95 million farmers represented are no longer asking for charity as they are demanding investment.

The call to action is urgent: for the global community to meet its climate goals, particularly the need for the 0.3% to increase. Direct access to finance is the only way to ensure that resources reach the local communities who are implementing the very agroecological solutions the environment needs, such as sustainable farming practices and biodiversity conservation efforts.

The farmers of Asia are ready to lead the transition to a sustainable future, provided that the global financial system finally decides to provide equitable access to family farmers.

Contributed by: Eduardo Salvador, ComDev Asia intern

Image credit: Asian Farmers’ Association (AFA)

References:

Asian Farmers Association. (2026). Family Farmers Organisations convene in Manila to advance direct access to climate finance. https://asianfarmers.org/family-farmers-organisations-convene-in-manila-to-advance-direct-access-to-climate-finance/

Asian Farmers Association. (2026). FORCE 2.0 Workshop: Deepening Farmers’ Organisations Recognition, Capacity, and Engagement. https://asianfarmers.org/force-2-0-workshop-deepening-farmers-organisations-recognition-capacity-and-engagement/

Asian Farmers Association. (2026). FORCE 2.0 Workshop: Advancing climate finance for family farmers. https://asianfarmers.org/force-2-0-workshop-advancing-climate-finance-for-family-farmers/

Asian Farmers Association. (2026). Highlights from the Days 1-3 FORCE 2.0 Workshop. https://asianfarmers.org/highlights-from-the-days-1-3-force-2-0-workshop/