Globally, five out of six farms are operated by smallholder farmers who produce around one-third of the world’s food. These farms provide a wide range of additional ecosystem services, such as carbon storage, pollination, and cultural and supporting services. However, smallholder households face continued and often growing challenges to making a living from their farms. They also tend to be the poorest and most food-insecure populations in low-and middle-income countries.

Evidence suggests that payments for ecosystem services can diversify smallholder earnings and incentivize more sustainable farming and land management practices. While a number of such smallholder-focused schemes have been implemented around the world, they have not gained enough traction to improve farm incomes or environmental outcomes.

This second seminar of the CGIAR Policy Seminar Series on Strengthening Food Systems examines past and current ecosystem service payment schemes targeted at smallholders, evaluates their effectiveness, and impacts, and explores how such schemes could be taken forward in order to help build greater resilience within food systems.

Welcome Remarks

• Johan Swinnen, Managing Director, Systems Transformation, CGIAR; Director General, IFPRI

Payments for Ecosystem Services: What, Where & How?

• Marcela Quintero, Associate Director General, Research Strategy, and Innovation for the Alliance of Bioversity and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); Senior Director, Food Systems Transformation Science Group 

BMZ Interest in Ecosystem Service Payments

• Felicitas Röhrig, Senior Policy Officer, Sustainable agricultural supply chains, international agricultural policy, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

Understanding Socio-Ecological Context when Designing PES and Carbon Market Interventions

• Steven Lawry, Senior Associate, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) 

Experiences from Linking Farmers with Carbon Markets in Africa

• Amos Wekesa, Carbon Specialist, Global EverGreening Alliance (GEA) 

The Promise of Commons as a Unique PES Scheme

• Pranab Choudhury, Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), Founder, Centre for Land Governance

Moderator

• Claudia Ringler, Director, Natural Resources and Resilience (NRR), IFPRI