MATI Convenes NDF, FAO and UNCDF at COP31 on Financing Smallholder Farmer Resilience

From pilot to portfolio: what it will take to finance smallholder farmer resilience

ANTALYA, TURKEY, November 6, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- MATI will host "From Degraded Soil to Durable Tonnes: De-Risking Removal that Builds Farmer Resilience" at the Think Negative Pavilion in the Blue Zone at COP31 on Tuesday, November 10.

The live, in-person session brings together climate adaptation financiers with agriculture and development finance institutions. They will examine which blended finance structures are ready to scale and where gaps remain between concessional and commercial capital.
The session runs from 11:15 to 12:15 local time. Registration is open at luma.com/at8x1sou.

Speakers
• Anu Hassinen, Program Manager, Portfolio Origination and Management, Nordic Development Fund (NDF)
• Martial Bernoux, Senior Natural Resources Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
• Kawtar Zerouali, Peace & Resilience Finance Advisor, UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)
• Ashish Kumar, MATI, moderator

Farmers managing drought, degraded soil and volatile prices need capital that lasts longer than a demonstration project.
The session focuses on the role of concessional and catalytic capital: where guarantees, first-loss layers and results-based payments have changed how lenders view farm-level risk, and where concessional money has drawn in commercial investment.

One structure under discussion is revenue stacking, in which an adaptation outcome is paired with an environmental outcome that someone will pay for. Rock dust is a working example.

Natural rock dust spread on a smallholder's field raises yields and incomes and restores degraded soil, at no cost to the farmer. As the rock weathers it removes carbon dioxide from the air, a process called enhanced rock weathering. That removal is sold to a corporate buyer as a durable carbon removal credit.

This second revenue line makes a resilience intervention bankable in a way that grant funding alone is not. The session will test how widely that structure applies and what it needs from public and concessional capital to work.

Farmers in seven countries now work with MATI. Soil that holds water and nutrients helps a farmer get through a dry season, and smallholders are the people least able to absorb a failed harvest. Bringing them into adaptation finance is a condition for climate resilience, and the multilateral community has a direct role in making that happen.

"Adaptation finance reaches smallholder farmers too rarely, and when it does, it is often short term," said Ashish Kumar of MATI. "Enhanced rock weathering shows that a resilience intervention can carry its own revenue line. Healthier soil holds water through dry seasons, and a durable carbon credit pays for the work."

"We want to hear from the funders and banks in the room what it would take to carry this from pilot to portfolio," Kumar said.

"Smallholder farmers are the first to feel a changing climate and have the least room to absorb a bad season," said Shantanu Agarwal, founder and CEO of MATI. "Healthier soil is resilience a farmer can see in the field. COP is where the people who finance that work are in the same room."

In 2025, MATI won the $50M XPRIZE Carbon Removal Grand Prize, from a field of 1,300 teams. MATI's India project is BeZero AA rated, the first for an enhanced rock weathering project in India. Isometric and Puro.earth verify MATI's removals, which last more than 10,000 years.

In India, fields with rock dust grew a median of 25% more grain than control plots, measured across 235 rice fields in four states in the 2025 kharif season. In the 2023 cohort, 45 farmers measured on the same fields still saw 18% higher yields at their third harvest after application, in 2025.

The discussion is held under the Chatham House Rule. A short synthesis note will follow for participants.

NDF, FAO and UNCDF speakers appear in their professional capacities.

About MATI
MATI raises farmer incomes by removing carbon. Today, MATI works in seven countries to spread natural rock dust on the fields of farmers. This raises crop yields, corrects soil acidity, releases nutrients, and delivers durable carbon removal through the process of enhanced rock weathering. Carbon revenue funds the entire operation, so farmers pay nothing. For this work, MATI won the $50M XPRIZE Carbon Removal Grand Prize. Learn more at mati.earth.

MATI Press Team
MATI Carbon
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