More resilient agriculture sectors and intelligent investments into smallholder farmers can deliver transformative change, and enhance the prospects and incomes of the world’s poorest while buffering them against the impacts of climate change.

This report shows how the benefits of adaptation outweigh the costs of inaction by ver y wide margins. For this transformation towards sustainable and more equitable agriculture, access to adequate extension advice and markets must improve, while insecurit y of tenure, high transaction costs, and lower resource endowments, especially among rural women, are barriers that will need to be overcome.