Some of our earliest memories are of our mother cooking up a storm in the kitchen of our family restaurant, Can Roca, in Girona. Mom’s famous rice stew. Riñones al Jerez. Cannelloni. Homemade flan baked fresh every afternoon. These are the smells and flavours from our childhood that have shaped who we are today. 

Our family has been in the restaurant business for three generations. The love of food is in our DNA—and so is the understanding that food doesn’t begin on the plate. It doesn’t even begin in the kitchen.  It starts on the farm.

From our morning coffee to our favourite rice stew, we rely on smallholder farmers for a third of the world’s food. Those who farm on less than two hectares of land are the backbone of our food system. Agriculture is the primary income source for one in four people globally and accounts for over a quarter of the gross domestic product in many developing countries.

Yet the farmers who feed us often struggle to feed themselves. They are on the frontlines of climate change, facing droughts, floods, pests, and erosion. These challenges are becoming more frequent and threaten their livelihoods.

In India, droughts that used to come once a decade now occur every few seasons. One failed harvest can mean a child loses a year of school or a family falls into debt.

Extreme weather also plays a role in what ends up on our plates—or in our cups. Ethiopia, one of the world’s top coffee producers, could lose over half its coffee-growing land, impacting 35 percent of its export earnings and millions of jobs. This can affect the price and availability of coffee around the world, including right here in Spain. 

“There is a climate change problem,” said Ahmed Abagidi, an organic coffee farmer in Western Ethiopia. When rain came too early, it reduced the quality and the amount of beans he produced, significantly lowering his earnings for the season. 

“This year, we are facing drought due to lack of rain,” said Dine Mohamed, a coffee grower in Ethiopia’s Harar region. “Last year, our crops were damaged by heavy rain.” Smallholder farmers like Mohamed and Abagidi make up the majority of the country’s coffee producers.

There is a way to help break the perpetual cycle of risk, debt and poverty affecting smallholder farmers. It’s called agricultural insurance. But it can only work if it’s coupled with supportive government policies, reliable data and investment from the public and private sector. 

UNDP is championing support for agricultural insurance programmes in countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East through public-private partnerships. For instance, UNDP’s Financial Resilience in Agriculture initiative, funded by the Gates Foundation, brings together policymakers, insurers, banks, and development partners to scale up support for existing insurance models in order to ensure lasting impact for those who rely on protection from climate-related losses.