FARM is not seeking to eradicate the use of pesticides and plastics in agricultural production. Rather, FARM is seeking to incentivize farmers to adopt effective alternatives to the most harmful pesticides and reduce plastic waste.

To do this, FARM is elaborating the business case for banks and policymakers to reorient policy and financial resources towards farms and farmers to help them adopt low and non-chemical alternatives and transition towards more sustainable management of pesticides and plastics.

“We want to bridge between modern science and indigenous knowledge, we have so much to learn from each other... I really want the FARM project to succeed in my country”, Mai Think Yu Mon, Co-Chair of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus shared how pesticides were harming her family.

Learn more at: https://www.greenpolicyplatform.org/initiatives/gef-farm

The GEF FARM programme has launched in Nairobi!

The Financing Agrochemical Reduction and Management (FARM) programme is a five-year, USD 37.5 million initiative, led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), that will seek to reduce the use of harmful chemicals, pesticides and plastics in agriculture, as well as invest in the cause.

Every year, at least four million tonnes of pesticides are applied worldwide, while plastics in food production and packaging account for 50 million tonnes of plastic production every year, 14% of all plastic produced.

The harm they do is evident – each year 11,000 people die from the negative effects of agrochemicals while soils and ecosystems are degraded from their residues and from plastic pollution.

The FARM inception meeting today was opened by John Elungata, from the Kenyan Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry.

Learn more at: https://www.greenpolicyplatform.org/initiatives/gef-farm

The governments of Ecuador, India, Kenya, Laos, Philippines, Uruguay, and Vietnam have come together to launch FARM, a $379 million initiative to combat pollution from the use of pesticides and plastics in agriculture.

Studies on the effects of agrochemicals are overwhelmingly quantitative, missing the voices of smallholder farmers who are disproportionately affected.