Breadfruit: A starchy, delicious climate and biodiversity solution

The Indian government’s Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change’s new climate adaptation program is designed to enhance climate resilience and rural farmers are adapting new agricultural practices to better resist the effects of climate change. So far, nearly 1,500 farmers across 48 villages have begun implementing these new sustainable farming practices and have seen not only an environmental benefit but financial gain as well.

Three biointensive mini-farms in the US are teaching small-scale farmers from throughout the world how to grow more food through sustainable practices that focus on using less water and land. After bringing these farmers onto the US farms to learn the methods through a hands-on approach, the farmers then return to their home countries to implement and encourage the biointensive practices.

In Brazil's Amazon deforestation hotspot BR-163, small farmers and entrepreneurs are working to implement sustainable farming alternatives like agroecology, beekeeping and converting cattle pastures to grow local fruits to create a “bioeconomy,” despite a lack of institutional support.

Bayero University Center for Dryland Agriculture’s Tissue Culture Lab empowers local farmers with advanced research and technology to adapt to climate change and increase food security and nutrition. So far, 22 communities have benefited from the Lab’s expertise, leading to increased food production and fewer health problems caused by inadequate diets.

Farmers living near the coast in India are turning to rooftop farming as cyclones lead to flooding that makes agricultural fields unusable. The Association for Social and Humanitarian Action taught local women how to grow food in tubs or sacks with compost, and those farmers trained others.

Kendrick Ransome uses ancestral farming techniques like low-till farming and conservation tilling to improve soil health and sequester more carbon on his farm. He founded Freedom Org to teach youth these practices and help other Black farmers do the same after decades of racist lending policies have dwindled their numbers.

Justin Haddad’s backyard in Phoenix, Arizona, is a food forest he’s cultivated over seven years. Using permaculture methods to imitate nature, he grows a variety of subtropical and desert plants that feed him and his family daily. And he’s expanded the project into a business to help others learn to do the same.

Coffee growers in Oaxaca, Mexico, are renovating their plantations into agroforestry systems to adapt to the effects of climate change. The new growing style integrates native trees and shrubs to diversify the fields. This makes the plants more resistant to unpredictable weather, diseases, and pests.

Surge Africa is a nonprofit helping Nigerian farmers learn about and implement agroforestry and agroecology practices to more sustainably manage their land and improve their yields despite the negative impacts of climate change.

The use of local and native pollinators can greatly increase farm productivity. In the region of Sosorgon, in the Philippines, farmers who have begun using the local kiwot bees to pollinate coconut farms have noted significant increases in their yields. The Balay Buhau sa Uma Bee Farm (BBu) serves as a demo farm for the broader beeping project in the municipality of Bulusan, which aims to help farmers earn more in a sustainable fashion. This includes encouraging courses in apiculture and the use of affordable, low maintenance hives.