Climate Action

Small and growing agricultural enterprises are global leaders championing climate resilience in their communities.


For farmers, climate change is not a far-off crisis. It’s a daily reality. Root Capital connects farmer enterprises with urgently needed resources, including localized data on climate risks, best practices for mitigation and adaptation, and capital for climate-smart investments.

The Challenge

Despite significant global commitments around climate change and the recognized importance of agriculture in confronting it, only 3% of climate capital today flows to agriculture. This investment is often too narrow in scope or one-time-only, leaving under-resourced communities to confront a massive global challenge on their own.  

Yet farmers are our greatest allies in the fight to save our planet. The right support can enable them to conserve precious ecosystems and adapt to existing climate impacts—all while maintaining or even raising their incomes.

Our Approach

Lend to businesses committed to rural climate action.

Build enterprise and farmer capacity to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Pilot financial products to unlock enterprise investments in climate action.

Demonstrate successful approaches and encourage replication by others.

Our Impact

$66.9M

263

562K

in climate finance disbursed to vulnerable communities.

businesses receiving agronomic and climate resilience advisory.

farmers and employees reached via climate resilience work.


Stories of Impact


Coffee: The Canary in the Coalmine for Climate Change

Nicolas Pineda, a coffee farmer and member of the 190-member cooperative Montaña Verde in Honduras. Note: This piece originally appeared on The Skoll World Forum website as part of a series on entrepreneurial solutions to climate change.  “It feels like a scourge from God,” said Nicolas Pineda as we surveyed row upon row of diseased coffee trees on his farm in Santa Barbara, Honduras. Nicolas showed me how coffee leaf rust, a fungus known as la roya in Spanish, was destroying his 18-year-old farm, turning verdant, productive coffee plants into spindly heaps of leafless sticks. Amid the surrounding lush green hills, the juxtaposition felt cruelly ironic.

Beyond the Scorecard: A Conversation with Two of Root Capital’s Sustainable Agriculture Buffs

  Jesse Last (left), Root Capital's value chain manager and Elizabeth Teague, senior associate for environmental performance. Last week when we released our first issue brief, Social & Environmental Due Diligence: From the Business Case to the Impact Case, we simultaneously released the scorecards used by our loan officers to evaluate clients’ social and environmental practices. To ensure the quality of the data we gather and the consistent application of due diligence standards by our loan officers, the scorecards alone are not enough, training is also required. In the case of our environmental scorecard, this has meant collaborating with the Rainforest Alliance to design and deliver three-day, field-based trainings in Costa Rica, Peru, and Kenya (next up is Ghana). Led by Rainforest Alliance agronomists, loan officers visited certified and non-certified farms in order to deepen their first-hand knowledge of sustainable agriculture.

Social & Environmental Due Diligence: From the Impact Case to the Business Case

We believe that assessing social and environmental factors is not just a way for mission-driven financial institutions like Root Capital to create impact. In this issue brief, we posit that social and environmental due diligence can also create financial benefits that partially or fully offset the costs involved for lenders and investors.

Download Issue Brief

FORBES — How To Help 450 Million Poor Farmers–Without Destroying The Earth

I sat down with Andrew Stern of Dalberg Advisors to talk about a topic that’s near and dear to my heart—how to spur a financial market to serve the unmet needs of the world’s 450 million poorest farmers while preserving our natural resources. View Article

Root Capital Launches $7 Million, Multi-Year Initiative to Combat La Roya and Build Farmer Resilience

Last summer, Maria Eufemia Madonado Ocaño (pictured above) watched helplessly as almost all of her coffee trees died. The 52-year-old Peruvian farmer and member of Root Capital client Unicafec was unable to stop the devastating spread of coffee leaf rust, called la roya in Spanish. The fungus has been sweeping through coffee-growing regions in Central America and Peru since late 2012.