In this paper, we explore data and the literature to propose approaches towards creating significant impacts on the income earned by commodity farmers and their household members, and towards protecting both forests and biodiversity. Our key messages are as follows:

• A minority of smallholder commodity farmers earn or could earn a living income from primary commodity production. For many farmers primary agricultural production of global commodities will never be a pathway out of poverty because of small farm sizes and low productivity levels.
• Price increases at scale can play an important role, but require supply management to offer stable long-term income impact without negative impact on forests and biodiversity.
• A tailored approach is needed. Smallholder commodity farmers who cannot earn more than the living income need alternatives, such as employment opportunities, so that they can move out of agriculture when land reform is implemented.
• Farmers remaining in agriculture should have the opportunity to increase farm sizes through appropriately implemented land reform.
• Such farmers should obtain support in land use change if they are situated in areas affected strongly by climate change. Such support should take into account the entire farm, not the commodity field only.
• In identifying the farmers who will or will not be lifted out of poverty by agriculture-based interventions, swift and effective decisions can be made on where and how to invest time and funds. In this way, policies and programmes can be implemented more cost-effectively, farmer’s frustrations can be avoided, as well as any time and costs associated with non-adoption.
• Policies and interventions must take into account contextual and personal factors which can influence farmers’ behaviour. People in rural areas should be listened to about their aspirations, needs and opportunities.
• Forest and biodiversity protection works best with multiple simultaneous interventions tackling all drivers of deforestation, including a strong role of the local population, sharing of information (data) and ultimately a concerted action between public and private stakeholders from different sectors, in order to prevent any shifting of the problem to some other sector or place.
• For designing effective and efficient interventions, findings should be shared between countries and across commodities on what works and also what failed to work. This includes the sharing of data and methodologies in order to avoid too much data being collected too many times, with too many farmers being interviewed too often, to satisfy the needs of various buyers and implementers.