Kashmir’s Small Farmers Wait for Climate Finance Relief

Farmers in Jammu and Kashmir live in fear of the climate, which has become unpredictable.

In the fertile fields of Jammu’s R.S. Pura, rice farmer Mohd Yaseen Khan stares at a cracked irrigation canal, battered by erratic rainfall. “One day heavy rain, next week a dry spell,” he says, dusting his palms. “Our crop suffers. Our costs rise.”

The climatic shift is no longer distant. It has arrived. For farmers like Yaseen, their fight is existential. Yet when global climate finance is discussed at summits like COP30, their voices rarely fill the room.

Global studies show that although developing countries carry a disproportionate share of climate risk, much of official climate finance still flows into richer nations and mitigation projects rather than small-scale agriculture and adaptation.

A report published by Harvard Business School reveals that 80 percent of climate finance is directed toward developed nations.

In agriculture, the gap is even starker. In 2023, just USD 5.5 billion, or 0.8 percent of climate finance, went to small-scale farmers and micro/small agri-food enterprises globally.

And while the headline target of USD 100 billion per year from developed to developing countries has reportedly been reached, critics note that the funding often comes as loans rather than grants, and the balance between mitigation and adaptation remains lopsided.

“Last year I lost one crop to flash flooding and another to drought stress. I took a loan of ₹1.5 lakh (about USD 1,600). At COPs they talk about targets; they talk about billions. I know I need a pump, I need weather alerts, and I need help to adapt. Give me that, not meetings.”

In R.S. Pura, a rice-growing belt near Jammu City, research reveals farmers are facing heatwaves, groundwater depletion, and shifting monsoon patterns.

“I used to count on predictable rains and a steady canal supply. Now I wait and it may not come,” said farmer Manga Ram.

Ram, whose family cultivates half a hectare, explains how the cost of diesel pumps, seed, and fertiliser has risen even as yields fluctuate. The ability to invest in climate-resilient practices is limited, credit is expensive, climate-smart inputs are unaffordable, and information is patchy.

Across Jammu and Kashmir, studies show that small-scale farmers have low adaptive capacity: limited access to climate services, technology, reliable water, and financial safeguards.

At the national level, the Indian government is publicly pushing for equity in climate finance. It has told global forums such as COP30 that developed nations must fulfil legal obligations for finance, technology transfer, and capacity-building for developing countries.

In Jammu and Kashmir, a USD 217 million programme was launched in June 2024 for agricultural transformation, aiming to boost incomes and livelihoods.

However, on the ground, many farmers say the money has yet to translate into local access. They speak of delays in subsidies, climate-smart seed varieties that never arrived, banks unwilling to offer low-interest loans, and grants still seen as elusive.

“The government says the fund is here, but to get it you need paperwork, a license, and land titles. Small farmers cannot always meet these conditions,” farmer Yaseen Khan told IPS News.

Mohd Yaseen Khan, 48, said that all he needs is help adapting, given the late arrival of monsoons and severe water scarcity in his maize field.

“Last year I lost one crop to flash flooding and another to drought stress. I took a loan of ₹1.5 lakh (about USD 1,600). If the climate keeps this way, I don’t know how I’ll repay it. They [at COPs] talk about targets, they talk about billions. I know I need a pump, I need weather alerts, and I need help to adapt. Give me that, not just meetings.”

“We are told climate finance will come. But on the ground, I see no cheap loans, no guarantee for the vulnerable. The world meets, we stay behind,” said apple grower Sahbir Ahmed from south Kashmir.

Madhulika Sharma, a project manager at a local NGO working for farmers’ welfare in Jammu, said small farmers are the ground zero of climate change. Yet the funding architecture is stacked: loans, high interest, complex eligibility. “There should be grants, and they should flow directly. When COP30 happens, the narrative is framed in capitals. The people who most need the money are absent. We aim to bring their faces to the table.”

When finance flows primarily to mitigation in energy and transport in rich countries, it leaves adaptation in poorer farming regions under-resourced. The global allocation remains tilted.

In Jammu and Kashmir, missed opportunities to invest in adaptation mean farmers face repeated shocks with limited buffers. Borrowing at high interest because low-cost adaptation funds are unavailable compounds their vulnerability.

“You cannot talk about climate justice while ignoring the rural farmer who has no access to the money the system promises,” Madhulika said.

With COP30 underway, developing countries, including India, are pressing for a new “collective quantified goal” on climate finance and clearer definitions of what counts as climate finance.

But for farmers on the ground in Jammu & Kashmir, what matters is not only global targets but the next rupee, the next pump, and the next modified seed. Without the means to adapt, they risk being collateral damage in a world that counts megawatts but overlooks kilowatt-hours of need in small farms.

In a narrow valley in R.S. Pura, the sound of tractors mingles with the hiss of drip-irrigation pipes, yet the real currency of climate change is access to finance.

For farmers in Kashmir, like Yaseen Khan, the next season may bring more than just weather stress; it may also bring debt. When they hear the word “finance” in global contexts, it sounds like a promise far away. When they get it, it is a loan.