At Global Citizen NOW: Perth this October, leaders discussed how to expand access to reliable, affordable clean energy. The summit secured commitments to deliver renewable electricity to millions of homes. It also delivered the Perth Declaration to Australia’s COP31 negotiating team, calling for urgent investment in renewables and stronger Pacific partnerships to get energy where it’s most needed.

That’s because essentially everything around us depends on reliable energy — including the food we eat. Power is needed to irrigate fields, refrigerate produce, and transport food to market. But much of the energy used across food systems still comes from fossil fuels. That means agriculture itself contributes to the climate crisis even as farmers face droughts, floods, and unpredictable growing seasons.

Connecting these disparate policy threads will be part of the challenge at COP31, the UN climate summit taking place in Antalya, Türkiye, from Nov. 9 to Nov. 20. As governments negotiate how to cut emissions and fund climate action, they must include the people who grow our food as they decide where and how that money is spent.

What does a just transition mean for farmers?

For farmers who depend on their next harvest to pay the bills, the initial switch to cleaner energy or new tech can be difficult to afford. New equipment and training can involve upfront costs that take years to recover, potentially leaving families in debt before they see the benefits.

A just transition means making sure farmers have support through those changes and a say in how they happen. A farmer installing solar-powered irrigation, for example, needs money to afford the pump and maintenance to keep it running, as well as customers for the crops they grow so they can make back their investment. 

Governments can help by tying support for farming and rural energy together, making it easier for farmers to get the funding and services they need. Exactly how to provide that support is now part of the UN’s Just Transition talks on food, agriculture, and oceans.

How are climate shocks hitting farmers?

A failed harvest can delay those upgrades even more, reducing income farmers had counted on to feed their families, pay household bills, and plant again the following season. Flooded roads or damaged storage facilities can also stop crops from reaching buyers. As we covered ahead of COP30, smallholder farmers often have little savings to help them recover in the event of a crisis.

Cyclone Freddy showed how quickly a disaster can threaten the next growing season. When it hit Malawi and Mozambique in 2023, farmers lost crops and livestock, along with seeds and tools they needed to start again.

“Torrential floods washed away everything, leaving farmers nothing to harvest,” said Amjad Ali, Oxfam’s Southern Africa program director at the time. Families told Oxfam they had nothing to grow ahead of the winter.

Helping farmers recover means supporting them in time to plant again. Preparing for future disasters also requires investment before crops are lost, including better access to weather information and climate-resilient infrastructure that withstands extreme conditions.

Farmers this year also face heightened risks from El Niño, a naturally occurring climate pattern in which unusually warm surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean disrupt weather around the world, bringing drought to some regions and heavy rainfall to others. This year’s El Niño is projected to be one of the worst on record, pushing 2026 to once again become the hottest year on record. Crops wither in a drought or die from flooding, decimating farmers’ harvests. The World Trade Organization has warned that these conditions could put further pressure on food production as farmers already juggle fertilizer shortages and higher fuel costs.

What does the Strait of Hormuz have to do with this?

The cost of growing food also depends on what happens far beyond the farm. Nitrogen fertilizer requires natural gas, while phosphate fertilizers need materials such as sulfur. When those supplies are disrupted, farmers can end up paying more for fertilizer or struggling to get enough before planting.

Much of that trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping route linking producers in the Persian Gulf with buyers around the world. Its closure put roughly one-third of the world’s fertilizer trade by sea at risk, adding pressure on farmers already facing unpredictable growing conditions.

By September, researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) reported that global nitrogen fertilizer exports had fallen 9% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year. Some prices had eased. Urea, a common nitrogen fertilizer, was back at January prices by the end of August, but phosphate fertilizers still cost 25% to 30% more than before the strait closed.

For farmers, a delivery that arrives after the planting window can come too late to protect their harvest. FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu has warned that fertilizer delays can mean smaller harvests and tighter food supplies in the seasons ahead. Governments need to step in to help farmers find the supplies when they need them and support agricultural practices that protect them from future shortages.

Why are women farmers at greater risk?

How well farmers cope with these pressures depends partly on the resources they can access. While women make up 42% of the workforce across agriculture and food systems, including work on farms and in food processing and distribution, they often have less access to loans, training, and equipment. Even on farms of the same size, these inequalities contribute to a 24% productivity gap between women and men.

Women are also less likely to own land, which can prevent them from qualifying for loans that require property as security. Without that financing, equipment and long-term investments can be out of reach, leaving them more exposed to escalating climate shocks.

The UN designated 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer, calling attention to the women who help feed communities and the inequalities they face. FAO estimates that closing gender gaps in farm productivity and wages could increase global GDP by nearly $1 trillion and reduce food insecurity for 45 million people.

Governments must use COP31 to commit more funding to women farmers and remove the barriers that prevent them from accessing it.

Why should young people have a say?

Young people are already growing food, running agricultural businesses, and working across fisheries, processing, and local markets. They know many of the barriers firsthand, and they are asking governments to act on them.

“Youth are not mere spectators in food systems transformation,” says the Food and Agriculture Working Group of YOUNGO, the official children and youth constituency to the UN climate convention. Its 2026 Global Youth Statement calls for financing that doesn’t require young farmers to pledge property as a guarantee, along with stronger rights to the land they farm.

Global Citizen is working with youth organizations and institutional partners to develop a shared Food Systems Call to Action, drawing on priorities raised through the Africa Food Systems Forum, the UN climate negotiations, and the World Food Forum. The initiative aims to secure commitments that help farmers adapt to climate change and give young people better access to financing and training to build agricultural businesses. It will also connect existing partner efforts so that support continues beyond COP31.

What would progress at COP31 look like?

The good news is that food security is already a priority in COP31’s Action Agenda. Leaders now need to explain how their commitments will help farmers keep growing food as costs rise and weather patterns fluctuate. That includes making funding easier for small organizations to apply for and ensuring that investment in irrigation and storage comes with training and maintenance support. Farmer cooperatives and associations can also help producers share equipment and services, making investments more affordable.

Governments and institutions should report where climate funding goes and who receives it, so communities can see whether support reaches women, young people, and small-scale farmers — the people who need it most. Clear reporting would also make it easier to hold leaders accountable when promises fail to translate into help on the ground.

COP31 is the last of this year’s three major UN environmental summits, following the desertification talks in Mongolia in August and the biodiversity summit that just concluded in Armenia. In Antalya, governments can build on those discussions by funding farming practices that protect the land while helping communities adapt to climate change.

The clean energy commitments announced in Perth give leaders momentum to build on in Antalya. Governments must now back farmers with affordable clean energy and funding to adapt to climate change, making sure women and young people are at the forefront of these policies. Global Citizens can help by calling on leaders to put the people who grow our food at the heart of climate action.