NAIROBI, Kenya (10 April 2025) — Building on over two decades of experience in global climate research, CGIAR launched a Climate Action Program that focuses on strengthening the climate resilience of over 600 million smallholder farmers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Globally, a third of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission comes from agriculture, forestry, and land use industries. Smallholder farmers who provide 1/3 of the world’s food supply are also the ones who are greatly affected by the impacts of climate change. Despite this, climate finance can only reach up to 2% of the vulnerable smallholder farmers. Thus, in a world where climate targets are missed, about 1.8 billion people will suffer from hunger.
The program offers two key pathways to addressing the challenges brought by climate change by focusing on driving policy and investments to climate finance to allow scaling innovations to millions of smallholder farmers and implementation of locally led actions. “We are working with other programs and with national partners because we need to mobilize resources to deliver these greater returns. We cannot do it alone... we are doing the science that then supports AICCRA (Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa) and other programs that do the acceleration and scaling.”, Joint Interim Co-Director of CGIAR Climate Action Dr. Sieglinde Snapp elaborated on the program’s vision.
IRRI Senior Scientist and Climate Change Focal Point Dr. Ole Sander discussed how the program will contribute towards the 2030 Methane Target which has two main initiatives, the Global Methane Pledge and the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The Global Methane Pledge is a commitment of over 160 countries to drastically reduce methane emissions and decarbonization of economies before 2030. NDCs on the other hand are climate action plans outlined by each nation to meet the global limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius rise in temperature by reducing GHG emissions. It also provides an outline of the adaptation plan of each country.
As part of the CGIAR Climate Action Program, one of IRRI’s work consists of continuing the integration of data and digitizing the measuring, reporting, and verifying low emissions in rice production through digital tools made for GHG mitigation. “Farm management data is a big data gap across the world.” To address this, Dr. Sander discussed how IRRI worked with extension workers and smallholder rice farmers to design digital tools for measuring, reporting, and verification (MRVs) of low-emission rice production. “We employ a user-centric approach where we do not develop the tool in isolation. We do several iterations and involve feedback groups where we test the design, get the feedback, and then improve the tool.”
Another climate-smart IRRI innovation that was featured during the launch was the Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) technology. AWD reduces water consumption in rice cultivation by about 30%, helping farmers lessen costs without significant yield penalty. It has also been proven to reduce methane emission by 30-70% since it helps inhibit the growth of methane-producing bacteria during dry phases. IRRI Regional Director for Africa Dr. Abdelbagi Ismail discussed how AWD has been effectively scaled across rice-producing countries like Vietnam, “The practice was developed with farmers, and they were well-trained to do that.” Dr. Ismail reiterated that it does not entail much cost, however scaling requires full policy support and investment from the public and private sectors.
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WATCH the whole session at CGIAR's official YouTube account.
LEARN MORE about IRRI’s GHG Mitigation innovations and digital tools.