VIHIGA, KENYA – At the Vihiga Mixed Farmers’ Cooperative in western Kenya, the hum of a solar-powered water pump is the sound of self-reliance. It is also a stark reminder of a deepening crisis. Here, 24 families pool their meagre resources not just to grow sukuma wiki, tomatoes, and passion fruit, but to survive the onslaught of an increasingly hostile climate. "We keep everything running by ourselves," Maryanne Waswa, the cooperative's chair, stated on Thursday, November 13, 2025 (EAT). "When a pump breaks down because of weather damage, the vegetables die. Nobody else pays for that."

This struggle in Vihiga County is a microcosm of a continent-wide emergency. Millions of Kenyan and African smallholder farmers, the backbone of the region's food supply, are financing their own battle against climate change. They are paying for drought-resistant seeds, repairing irrigation systems battered by erratic floods, and restoring degraded soils with little to no external support. The scale of this burden has been laid bare in a new analysis by Climate Focus, commissioned by the Family Farmers for Climate Action (FFCA) coalition, which represents 95 million small producers globally.

A Staggering Finance Gap

The report, titled “Feeding the World in a Changed Climate,” estimates that smallholder farmers worldwide require US$443 billion annually to adapt to climate change. However, current international public climate finance flows directed to them amount to a mere US$1.59 billion as of 2021—less than 0.4% of the identified need. This leaves a colossal gap that farmers are forced to fill themselves, spending an estimated US$368 billion collectively from their own incomes.

For farmers in Vihiga, a region where agriculture provides 70% of employment, the consequences are dire. The county is already grappling with prolonged dry spells, intense, erratic rainfall, and declining soil fertility, which jeopardize food security for its residents. "When a season does poorly, we forfeit not just our harvest; it means delaying school fees or taking short-term loans," explained Emmanuel Wanyonyi, the cooperative's secretary. "It becomes an additional expense that directly impacts our finances."

This reality is echoed across Kenya, where agriculture is a critical pillar of the economy but remains overwhelmingly dependent on rain-fed systems vulnerable to climate shocks. The 2020-2023 drought, one of the most severe in recent history, exposed over 4.2 million Kenyans to acute food insecurity, highlighting the urgent need for robust adaptation measures.

Systemic Failures and Local Costs

The failure of global climate finance to reach the frontlines is systemic. A joint 2023 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Climate Policy Initiative found that in 2019/20, only 0.8% of total tracked climate finance across all sectors went to small-scale agrifood systems. Most funding is channelled through large international agencies, with significant overheads and bureaucratic hurdles that prevent it from reaching rural communities directly.

The United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) 2023 Adaptation Gap Report reinforces this grim picture, stating that progress on climate adaptation is slowing down when it should be accelerating. The report estimates the adaptation finance gap is 10 to 18 times greater than the international public finance flows, leaving the world's most vulnerable, including farmers, dangerously exposed.

The cost of inaction is far greater than the investment required. The FFCA report notes that the US$443 billion needed for smallholder adaptation is less than the US$470 billion governments currently spend on agricultural subsidies, many of which are environmentally harmful. Redirecting these funds could transform the resilience of global food systems.

For the farmers in Vihiga, such global policy debates feel distant. Their immediate reality is the daily calculus of survival: patching up irrigation pipes, sourcing affordable climate-resilient seeds, and hoping the next season’s rains are neither too little nor too much. Their out-of-pocket investments are not just sustaining their farms; they are underwriting a portion of Kenya's food security and economic stability against overwhelming odds. As world leaders prepare for future climate summits like COP30, the question for millions of Kenyan farmers remains whether the promised support will ever move from global pledges to tangible action in their fields.