NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

By Daphne Ewing-Chow

Somewhere— from the highlands of East Africa to the Small Island Developing States of the Caribbean or the Pacific— a farmer is struggling to coax life from her modest plot that has been battered by extreme weather, from withering droughts to torrential floods. Her tools are basic, her seeds vulnerable to erratic rains, her daily earnings rarely stretch beyond a dollar, and she is among the 730 million people facing hunger today. While she didn’t cause this crisis, she is on the front lines of its impact— and she remains largely excluded from the resources she needs to adapt.

Photo courtesy of A’Melody Lee / World Bank.