Growing green on India’s farms

As governments step up efforts to tackle climate change, the key challenge is how to produce enough food for the world's growing population in a way that reduces planet-heating emissions from agriculture and the damage it causes to ecosystems.

Achieving this requires a widespread shift to low-carbon, climate-resilient food production, which will only succeed if it puts farmers at the centre and provides them with the support they need to adapt to more extreme weather and adopt greener practices, experts say.

Small family farms sustain the livelihoods of more than 2.5 billion people globally and produce a third of the world’s food. But they lack infrastructure, technology and resources to adapt to climate change impacts, with serious implications for food security and rural economies.

Context's series, "Growing Green", explores the path to a just transition in India's agriculture sector, where heat, drought and floods are hurting harvests and fuelling debt in poor, rural areas.

Our reporters talked to small-scale farmers - often excluded from policy debates - to find out how they are coping with climate challenges, and what they need to make eco-friendly solutions work for them.