Lizah Makombore

1 Introduction Small-scale farming is the most common form of agricultural production worldwide (Samberg et al. 2016). Yet small-scale farmers encounter structural barriers including limited access to inputs, reliance on family labor, distance from markets, and insufficient public support that limit their ability to enhance resilience (Ola and Menapace 2020; Roop et al. 2023; Touch et al. 2024).

Agriculture is essential to human life. How we feed ourselves matters for nutrition, health, climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Nearly 928 million people are employed in farming globally, and food systems are responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions and most new deforestation. Multilateral development banks (MDBs), like the World Bank Group (WBG), play a critical role. The WBG has committed to double its agricultural financing to $9 billion a year by 2030.