BAKU: Climate change is dangerously impacting crops and driving worldwide hunger, according to the head of the International Fund of Agricultural Development.

“Food security is intertwined with the current extreme weather events, as it has impacted the world,” IFAD President Alvaro Lario said in an interview with Arab News on the sidelines of the COP29 UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.

IFAD reported that in 2023, about 735 million people suffered from hunger caused by climate change.

In addition, unusual rainfalls, according to IFAD, caused a decrease in wheat production and food quality in Europe.

Floods and heat waves caused damage to orange crops in Brazil. In Southern Africa, above-average temperatures led to below-average maize harvests, and in parts of West Africa, erratic rains affected cocoa production and cut output by half.

“We are seeing a lot of the crops are fully being impacted in Brazil, which has been hit by a historic drought, or in Ghana, for example, where there has not been enough rain, cutting the cocoa production by half.”

The IFAD is a UN specialized agency as well as a development finance institution. The organization provides concessional funds and grants to countries and invests in the private sector.

The organization’s key focus is to provide livelihoods and raise income as well as production in low- and middle-income countries.

“Our biggest investments are in the Sub-Saharan region. Fifty-five percent of our funding goes to Sub-Saharan Africa, and up to 60 percent into Africa. But we also operate in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. We are currently investing in 90 countries,” said Lario.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the main contributors to IFAD. According to the organization, Saudi Arabia has contributed over $536 million to IFAD since it started and is among the top 10 donors.

In the last 10 years alone, the Kingdom has contributed a total of $96.6 million.

IFAD implemented the first phase of a project to support coffee and mango farmers in the Jazan region.

From 2018 to 2023, the project established 50 model coffee farms and five mango farms in the region, which benefited nearly 30,000 smallholder farmers, according to IFAD.

Furthermore, the project adopted strategic plans through a group of development solutions and pillars that include agricultural sustainability and innovation.

“Small-state islands are among the most vulnerable (to climate change),” said Lario. “We are seeing that sea levels are rising. They are also suffering from hurricanes and long droughts. They suffer from access to potable drinking water.”

Strategies to address the problem and implement adequate solutions have been developed by IFAD according to each country’s climate situation.

“For IFAD, we do have strategies on how we work and how we design our projects. All the strategies are to promote sustainable food systems, also to increase rural non-farm crops, so they can also diversify their income.”

One of the programs the organization is working on is in Belize, in Central America, for heat-tolerant and drought-resistant crops such as maize or beans. Another project involves mixing trees with crops that provide shade to conserve water and combat the rising temperatures in Cuba.