The Triple Gap in Finance for Agrifood Systems

This report takes a systems-based approach to analyzing the investment needs of the agrifood sector. This goes beyond the traditional agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) framework to encompass the entire process of agricultural and food production, from farm, to table, to waste. Agrifood systems also include non-food products (e.g., biofuel, fibers, and timber) that support livelihoods, along with the stakeholders, activities, investments, and decisions involved in bringing products to end consumers. This framework better reflects the complex interactions and feedback loops between the sectors involved across agrifood value chains.

The analysis takes an unprecedented, two-pronged approach to estimating investment needs for global agrifood systems. This dual approach blends the expertise of CPI and FAO to comprehensively understand the gaps between the available, estimated, and required funding to transition agrifood systems to low-carbon and climate-resilient pathways. The “top-down” method estimates the level of climate finance required to fund the actions and interventions needed in agrifood systems to keep the average global temperature rise within 1.5°C by 2050. The “bottom- up” method estimates the level of climate finance required by countries to achieve their national climate targets for agrifood systems, as stated in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).