No credit rating agency assesses its consequences, and no international agreement has established a credible mechanism for calculating its true cost.
Yet it is being paid, every day, by people whose contributions to our collective survival are immeasurably greater than the financial resources available to them.
It is paid by the farmer who borrows to replace a crop destroyed by flooding. By the family that sells livestock to purchase feed during a prolonged drought. By the cooperative forced to postpone investment because its members are struggling to survive the current season. And by the young person who sees diminishing opportunity in agriculture and begins looking elsewhere for a future.
Increasingly, it is also paid by women whose labour, savings and resilience hold rural households together when formal systems fail them. Their sacrifices rarely appear in the financial assessments presented at international climate negotiations, although the consequences can shape entire communities for generations.
This is the hidden interest on climate delay, and its cost is growing.
As world leaders prepare to gather in Antalya, Türkiye, for COP31 from 9 to 20 November 2026, an uncomfortable question deserves far greater prominence in the negotiations. How much longer can we expect the people who produce our food to carry the financial consequences of a climate crisis they have limited resources to confront?
The answer will reveal far more about the future of international climate action than another declaration of ambition.
A World Running Out of Financial Time
On 4 November 2026, just days before COP31, the United Nations Environment Programme released its latest Adaptation Gap Report. Its findings should concern every government, financial institution, development organisation and investor with an interest in the future of food production.
Developing countries face estimated adaptation needs of approximately US$305 billion annually by 2035. International public adaptation finance flows from developed to developing countries reached only US$28.2–31.7 billion in 2024. Even if the international ambition to triple adaptation finance by 2035 is achieved, UNEP estimates that it would cover only 20–29% of developing countries' adaptation needs.
Consider the implications of that finding. The world could fulfil one of its most prominent climate finance ambitions and still leave the overwhelming majority of estimated adaptation needs unmet. For agriculture, where climate risks are inseparable from production cycles, rural incomes and food availability, the consequences of this financial shortfall are particularly serious.
A climate shock can destroy months of agricultural work in a matter of hours. Its economic consequences may persist through several growing seasons as households struggle to replace productive assets, service existing debt, retain workers and restore their capacity to produce. When the recovery process takes longer than the agricultural cycle itself, a temporary disaster can become a prolonged economic crisis.
These consequences rarely remain confined to individual farms. They move through local food markets, agricultural supply chains, processing facilities, transport networks and rural employment systems before eventually reaching consumers, public budgets and national economies.
We continue to calculate the financial consequences of climate change through increasingly sophisticated economic models, yet many of its immediate costs are already being absorbed by agricultural households whose financial circumstances receive far less attention. The global financial architecture remains poorly equipped to recognise that burden, let alone relieve it in time to prevent further economic damage.
Every delayed investment transfers another portion of the climate bill to those with the least capacity to finance it.
The Great Agricultural Contradiction
Agriculture occupies an extraordinary position in the international climate debate. It is simultaneously exposed to climate change, involved in producing greenhouse gas emissions and essential to delivering solutions that strengthen resilience, protect ecosystems and secure future food supplies.
Food production depends on functioning ecosystems, stable water resources, productive soils, reliable infrastructure and viable rural economies. As these foundations become increasingly vulnerable, agricultural resilience becomes inseparable from broader economic stability and human development.
Yet the financing of agriculture remains profoundly misaligned with its importance.
Climate Policy Initiative's 2025 analysis estimated that agrifood systems received US$94.9 billion annually in tracked climate finance during 2021–2022, representing approximately 7.2% of global climate finance flows at that time. The same analysis identified an estimated US$1.1 trillion in annual investment needs through 2030 to align agrifood systems with climate objectives.
AI tools to strengthen Africa’s climate-resilient agriculture
Although these figures describe different dimensions of climate finance, they illustrate the magnitude of the challenge. Global ambitions are expanding considerably faster than the financial arrangements required to implement them, and the distance between international commitments and practical investment remains substantial.
We have become exceptionally capable of describing the agricultural transformation the world requires. Sophisticated models can assess climatic risks, identify promising production systems, estimate emissions, monitor environmental changes and project future food demand. Scientific understanding continues to advance, supported by expanding access to satellite observations, digital technologies and increasingly detailed agricultural information.
The difficulty emerges when these ambitions encounter the economics of an actual working farm.
A farmer considering the adoption of more resilient production practices faces a complicated financial decision. Who will finance the transition? What happens if yields decline before the benefits materialise? Will the market reward improved production practices, and can insurance provide meaningful protection against increasingly unpredictable weather? Who provides technical assistance when new methods encounter difficulties, and how will the household meet its financial obligations while the transition is taking place?
These questions determine whether promising agricultural innovations become commercially viable practices or remain confined to research programmes and demonstration projects. They also expose a fundamental weakness in many international financing initiatives, where the costs and risks of change are often transferred to farmers before the economic benefits have become sufficiently certain.
For farmers operating with limited savings, restricted access to credit and considerable exposure to market fluctuations, even a technically sound investment may be financially impossible.
The international community needs to recognise that agricultural transformation carries transition costs extending across multiple seasons, market relationships and production systems. Effective financing must accommodate those realities while creating credible pathways towards improved productivity, stronger resilience and sustainable livelihoods.
The future of agriculture cannot depend on farmers financing the world's climate ambitions from the narrow margins of their own survival.
The Missing Infrastructure Between Climate Finance and the Farmer
I believe one of the most important opportunities at COP31 lies in addressing a weakness that receives surprisingly little attention in international development finance.
For decades, the world has invested considerable effort in building institutions capable of mobilising capital. We have established climate funds, development banks, guarantee mechanisms, blended finance structures and increasingly sophisticated investment instruments. These institutions play essential roles, and their continued development is critical.
However, mobilising capital is only part of the challenge. Equal attention must now be given to the infrastructure capable of connecting that capital with the farmers, cooperatives, enterprises and productive activities it is intended to support.
Consider an agricultural cooperative preparing for an increasingly challenging growing season. Climate information identifies growing water stress, and its members urgently need improved irrigation equipment, suitable inputs, agricultural advice and greater certainty about their future markets.
A development institution may be willing to finance adaptation. A bank may be interested in lending, an equipment supplier may have the required technology, and an insurer may be prepared to cover certain risks. A buyer may even be willing to enter into an agreement for the resulting harvest.
Every essential component appears to be available, yet each operates within a different institutional and commercial system.
The bank needs verified information. The supplier requires payment certainty. The insurer needs appropriate risk data. The buyer wants confidence in production volumes and quality. The development institution requires evidence that funds are being used effectively, while the cooperative must navigate all these requirements without necessarily possessing the administrative capacity or resources to satisfy them simultaneously.
The resulting delays and transaction costs can undermine an otherwise viable investment. Sometimes the opportunity disappears entirely before the necessary institutions reach agreement.
This is where the design of agricultural financing and delivery systems becomes decisive.
Farmers need accessible pathways connecting identity, land information, finance, inputs, technical support, insurance, markets and appropriate verification. Cooperatives and farmer organisations can coordinate these relationships, aggregate demand, strengthen commercial negotiating positions and reduce the cost of delivering services to dispersed agricultural communities.
Digital infrastructure can make these connections more efficient, provided it remains inclusive, affordable, interoperable and governed by appropriate safeguards that protect farmers' interests and information.
The purpose is practical. Capital should reach a verified need, support a productive transaction and generate an outcome that can be measured. Financing institutions should be able to understand where resources are going, suppliers should have confidence in settlement arrangements, and farmers should gain access to services that improve their ability to produce and earn sustainable incomes.
Through my work with farmer initiatives at the World Agriculture Forum, this challenge continues to reinforce a conviction that has become central to our approach.
We are building the rails that connect what agriculture has with what agriculture needs. Those rails matter because the ultimate effectiveness of climate finance depends on what happens after an institution approves the funding, when commitments must become functioning agricultural systems and measurable improvements in people's lives.
Finance Must Move at the Speed of Agriculture
Agricultural production follows biological and seasonal realities that international financing systems cannot afford to overlook.
Seeds have planting windows. Livestock require continuous care. Water infrastructure needs maintenance before a failure becomes catastrophic, and harvested produce can deteriorate rapidly when appropriate storage or logistics are unavailable. A farmer's financial obligations continue regardless of whether an investment committee has completed its assessment or a funding agreement has received final approval.
Timing therefore determines much of the economic value of agricultural finance.
Capital released after a critical planting window may arrive too late to preserve the opportunity it was intended to support. Insurance paid long after a disaster may struggle to prevent distressed sales of productive assets. Assistance that finances production while overlooking transport, storage and market access may leave farmers with crops they cannot sell profitably.
A technically successful intervention can deliver disappointing economic results when the supporting financial arrangements are poorly aligned with agricultural realities.
This requires a more integrated approach to financing resilience and sustainable production.
Public funding should support essential services and infrastructure whose benefits are widely shared, including agricultural research, extension, climate information and appropriate public goods. Concessional finance and guarantees can address clearly defined risks that prevent viable investments from proceeding, while commercial finance can support productive enterprises through arrangements suited to agricultural cash flows.
Insurance can help protect farmers and financiers against specified risks, provided its coverage, premiums and settlement arrangements are appropriate. Reliable market relationships can improve income certainty, strengthen business planning and make working capital more accessible.
These instruments become considerably more effective when coordinated around the needs of agricultural producers.
Environmental improvements and commercial sustainability must develop together if progress is to endure. Farmers need practical reasons and sufficient financial capacity to adopt improved approaches, especially where the benefits are gradual or uncertain.
Carbon markets and other outcome-based financing mechanisms may offer supplementary revenue opportunities where credible measurement, transparent agreements and functioning markets exist. Their administrative costs, uncertainties and payment timelines require careful examination, particularly when the intended beneficiaries are smallholder farmers.
A farmer's immediate financial survival cannot reasonably depend on an environmental payment that may take years to materialise.
The objective should be to create conditions in which improved agricultural practices become economically attractive and financially achievable. That requires patient investment where appropriate, stronger market relationships, reliable services and a clearer allocation of risks across the institutions participating in agricultural value chains.
A Farmgate Delivery Commitment for COP31
The COP31 Presidency has identified food security, climate-resilient agriculture, finance for women farmers and the relationship between food, water and climate as important priorities. These areas provide a valuable foundation for addressing the challenges confronting agricultural communities.
I believe COP31 should build on that foundation through a practical Farmgate Delivery Commitment, designed to connect international climate finance ambitions with measurable outcomes at farm and cooperative level.
Such a commitment could begin by introducing agricultural timing into the evaluation of climate finance. Every major agricultural adaptation programme should identify when funding must reach its intended beneficiaries to remain effective, with institutions reporting the time between financial commitments, approvals, disbursements and productive use.
The value of finance should be assessed alongside its availability. Where funding arrives after the relevant agricultural season, programme evaluations should consider the production opportunities and economic benefits that may have been lost.
A second priority is to finance the complete pathway towards resilient production.
Agricultural transformation frequently requires a combination of suitable inputs, equipment, training, working capital, technical support, insurance and reliable markets. Treating these requirements as disconnected investments can increase costs and weaken outcomes. Better coordination would allow different sources of capital to support complementary activities while maintaining clear responsibilities and appropriate financial controls.
Farmer organisations should also gain meaningful influence over the design and governance of agricultural investment.
Their participation should extend beyond consultation to identifying priorities, evaluating proposals, agreeing delivery arrangements and assessing results. Particular attention is needed where existing land, credit and ownership structures restrict the opportunities available to women farmers, young producers and marginalised communities.
Effective accountability would require transparent financial arrangements, accessible grievance procedures and clear safeguards governing the collection and use of agricultural information.
Finally, climate finance should be measured through credible evidence of what changes in farmers' lives and production systems.
Changes in net farm income, resilience to shocks, production stability, market access and the affordability of agricultural services can provide valuable economic indicators. Environmental measures relating to water, soil, emissions or biodiversity should be appropriate to the intervention and supported by suitable verification methods.
Institutions must also establish whether reported improvements can reasonably be attributed to the investments being made. Independent assessment and transparent reporting can strengthen confidence, while verification requirements should remain proportionate to the circumstances of farmers and cooperatives.
Together, these principles would create a more accountable connection between international climate commitments and agricultural outcomes.
They would also provide governments, financial institutions and development partners with a practical framework for assessing whether climate finance is reaching agricultural communities effectively.
The Opportunity to Transform the Economics of Resilience
The possibilities are considerable, especially when we look beyond isolated projects and consider how entire agricultural systems could function more effectively.
Imagine cooperatives able to access affordable finance because their production activities, market relationships and financial records can be verified with appropriate safeguards. Development finance institutions could release purpose-bound funding against clearly defined activities while maintaining transparent audit trails. Equipment suppliers would gain greater payment certainty, insurers could obtain suitable risk information, and buyers could engage with producer organisations through arrangements that strengthen commercial confidence.
For farmers, the most important change would be greater predictability.
They could enter a new growing season with a clearer understanding of the support available, the costs involved, the likely market opportunities and the risks they would be expected to carry. Their decisions would be supported by functioning relationships among financial institutions, suppliers, service providers and buyers.
These capabilities are technically and institutionally possible. Bringing them together at meaningful scale will require suitable governance, investment, partnerships and sustained attention to the realities of rural communities.
This opportunity becomes particularly significant as major international initiatives seek to reach increasing numbers of agricultural producers.
The World Bank Group's AgriConnect initiative, for example, has set an ambition to expand access to services, markets and finance for 300 million smallholder and family farmers by 2030. Achieving such ambitions creates an opportunity to demonstrate how better coordination among institutions can improve agricultural livelihoods, strengthen resilience and expand investment opportunities.
The lessons from these initiatives should extend beyond the number of farmers enrolled or the amount of capital committed.
We need to understand whether participating households become more financially resilient, whether agricultural businesses become commercially sustainable, and whether investments create durable improvements in production systems and local economies.
The scale of the agricultural challenge demands approaches that can be adapted across different countries, farming systems and market conditions without losing sight of local needs.
Antalya Must Become a Turning Point
COP31 arrives at a moment when the distance between scientific understanding and practical implementation is becoming increasingly consequential.
We possess immense knowledge about the risks facing global agriculture. We also possess technologies, financial instruments and institutional capabilities that could support more resilient production systems. The challenge is to organise these capabilities around the realities of the people whose livelihoods depend on them, with sufficient urgency to prevent avoidable losses and sufficient discipline to ensure that investments deliver lasting value.
There is a profound economic danger in allowing vulnerable agricultural communities to become the involuntary financiers of climate adaptation.
Each delayed investment can deepen financial fragility, and each preventable loss can weaken a household's ability to recover. As these pressures accumulate, the consequences extend into food affordability, employment, migration, fiscal stability and international economic security.
At some point, the cost of repeated recovery can exceed the investment that might have reduced the original vulnerability. That possibility should concern every finance minister, central banker, agricultural leader, investor and development institution attending COP31.
The climate crisis is already entering financial accounts through lost production, damaged infrastructure, disrupted supply chains and growing demands on public resources. Agricultural resilience must therefore be recognised as an essential component of economic and financial stability, with appropriate investment treated as a strategic priority.
When delegates leave Antalya on 20 November, I hope the most important measure of progress will be the quality of the practical commitments they carry home.
Which institutions will make finance available earlier in agricultural cycles? Which risks will governments, development banks and private investors agree to share? How will farmer organisations gain genuine influence over investment decisions, and who will be accountable when promised support fails to arrive?
These questions require answers that can survive contact with the realities of rural production.
The world cannot continue treating farmers' resilience as an unlimited resource. Behind every climate finance statistic stands a household making decisions with real consequences, and behind every missed agricultural opportunity lies an economic cost that can persist long after financial approval eventually arrives.
We have the knowledge to act, much of the necessary technology, and institutions capable of mobilising considerable resources. We also know that the economic consequences of climate disruption will continue to grow without effective intervention.
The responsibility now is to connect these capabilities through practical financial arrangements, stronger institutions and a commitment to measurable outcomes.
COP31 has an opportunity to change how the world finances its agricultural future. Its success should ultimately be judged by the resilience it creates, the livelihoods it strengthens and the confidence it gives farmers to invest in the seasons ahead.
The world's climate promises are accumulating interest. Farmers are already paying, and every season of delay adds to the bill that future generations will inherit.
The institutions making those promises must now accept a greater share of the responsibility for delivering them.
