Source: “Climate change and its implications for small farmers,” Special Release Issue No. 9, People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty and Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific, September 2009.

Climate change impacts heavily on the world’s rural poor because their livelihoods largely depend on natural resources and their capacity to adapt is limited.

• Some 60 to 80 percent of the people in poor countries engage in small-scale agriculture. Change in rainfall patterns or decrease in volume of rainfall, floods, droughts and salinity due to a changing climate have grave implications for these small farmers

• Over 90 percent of the 15 million people working in coastal waters are small-scale fishers. Rise in sea levels, destruction of natural systems such as mangroves and seacoasts have disastrous impacts for fisherfolk and coastal communities.

• About 500 million to 1 billion smallholder farmers grow farm trees or manage residual forests for subsistence and income, while 60 million indigenous people rely fully on forests. The destruction of forests due to aridity and fire results in decline of forestry production, loss of biodiversity, decreased resources for food and livelihood, erosion, etc.

• Over 600 million rural poor keep livestock, an important asset in the countryside. Adverse changes in biodiversity translate to imbalances in the food chain and increase in livestock diseases.