The Global Environment Facility (GEF)-funded Financing Agrochemical Reduction and Management (FARM) Programme is a five-year, $37-million project. Its objective is to catalyze a framework for regulatory and financial investment to detoxify the agricultural sector by eliminating the use of the most harmful inputs to food production systems. FARM seeks to reduce the use of harmful pesticides and plastics in agricultural production and encourage the adoption of low and non-chemical alternatives.  

Agriculture is a major contributor to the triple planetary crisis. It pollutes the environment and poses serious risk to human health through its use of dangerous pesticides and agricultural plastics.  

Global pesticide use has soared 74% since 1990, with over 4 million tonnes now applied annually. The negative effects are acute and long-term, leading to approximately 11,000 deaths each year. In parallel, the use of agricultural plastics is increasing, with 12.5 million tonnes used yearly, in plant and animal production (and a further 37.5 million tonnes in food packaging).   

The agriculture sector also generates about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions and is responsible for over 60 percent of biodiversity loss.   

FARM represents one of the first concerted efforts to reduce and better manage the use of harmful agrochemicals and agricultural plastics on a global scale, bringing together multi-sectoral partners and stakeholders from around the world.  It aims to facilitate access to finance for farms and farmers to eliminate, reduce, and better manage the use of hazardous pesticides and materials.  

With financial incentives favoring the intensification of toxic chemicals to increase yield, FARM has a particular focus on leveraging finance from public resources and the financial sector and aims to align policy, enforcement, and finance towards the environmentally sustainable management of pesticides and agricultural plastics. 

The programme’s expected Global Environmental Benefits include:  

All cooperating child projects in FARM have the same three overall pathways to change: 

1. Policy and regulatory capacity and surveillance enhanced to improve the management of pesticides and agricultural plastics and promote the adoption of safer alternatives.  

2. Financing and investment mechanisms incorporate environmental considerations and support the promotion and adoption of new technologies for sustainable agricultural practices. 

3. Best practices and knowledge inform environmentally sustainable management of pesticides and hazardous pesticide waste, agricultural plastics and adoption of safer alternatives. 

The GEF-supported FARM Programme is led by UNEP and implemented by the Asian Development Bank, UNDP, and UNIDO with execution carried out in country by FAO and relevant country institutions in Ecuador, India, Kenya, Lao PDR, Philippines, Uruguay and Viet Nam. The global child project is executed by the Green Growth Knowledge Partnership (GGKP).