Farmers are facing unprecedented interlinked global shocks and challenges that threaten the gains in global food security and poverty reduction in recent years. Since most agriculture is rainfed in developing countries, climate change directly impacts agriculture by increasing temperatures and changing when and how much it rains. Most of the seeds, animals, and farming practices providing the world’s food are less productive as the climate changes, having been developed for past climates. Hence, farming and food systems need to be transformed across the globe to build resilience to these climate impacts and meet the increasing demand for food by growing populations and cities.

This need is most acute in developing countries, affecting at least 2.4 billion people on 19 million km2 of agricultural land. Reconfiguring the world’s agriculture and enhancing food and nutritional security will be challenging, but it offers opportunities for enhancing climate resilience, reducing agricultural CO2 emissions (10-12 per cent of global total, IPCC), and providing a suite of co-benefits, including: reducing the degradation of ecosystems and land and water resources; reducing biodiversity loss; creating millions of new jobs by improving value chains in agriculture; improving nutrition; reducing waste; and providing new opportunities for marginalized groups including women, youth, those living in poverty and indigenous peoples to manage resources and access services, assets, knowledge and skills.