Development Aid: Agriculture

(asked on 8th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how much of the UK Official Development Assistance spend is directed towards agriculture; and what percentage of that spend is directed towards (1) agroecological approaches, and (2) small farms; and whether they benchmark those figures against the level of such provision from other countries.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 22nd January 2021

The UK Government is committed to supporting the agricultural sector in developing countries. In 2018 the UK Government spent £322 million in Official Development Assistance on agriculture projects and provided significant additional funding for agriculture through its core funding of multilateral institutions working in the sector. This makes us a middle-ranking donor in the sector.

Whilst the UK Government does not break down expenditure on agroecological approaches or small farms, we are supporting a wide range of programmes in both these areas. For example, we have been supporting smallholder farmers and their agriculture systems in 47 countries through our bilateral agriculture programmes as well as the multilateral flagships Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme and Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme.

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