Charting the Direction for Agrifood Action After COP30

The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) is over, and we want to thank the host country, Brazil, and the Presidency for its leadership on a number of issues. It was a tough negotiation. Multilateralism is facing difficult times and finding consensus may not come easily for some years to come.

There are very important things that happened at COP. We saw the Presidency and several key countries make concrete new initiatives on land restoration, methane reduction and a fertilizer declaration — the first of its kind. These are spaces where not all actors are present, but we have paths forward that are extremely important and indicative of what the agrifood industry needs to do.

At the same time, another bright light has been the engagement of a broad range of actors. By having farmers, industry leaders, researchers and others present at COP30, conversations are happening about concrete actions.

The reality is that the Sharm El-Sheikh Joint Work (SSJW) negotiations were deferred until June. They were not able to come to any agreement specifically on the agricultural negotiations for the climate discussions. This is disappointing, but at the same time, we see sectors working together within the agrifood sphere to make changes in how they manage their value chains — in how they are looking at soil carbon sequestration, engaging with carbon markets, expanding agroforestry, and improving crop rotation and intercropping. These activities are extremely important. Soil health is one of those areas where we can intervene to keep carbon sequestered in our soils.

Carrying on with this work means that we need to engage more. We also need the most diverse set of stakeholders present in these climate negotiations, learning about the direction of travel, understanding where negotiations are headed, and doing their part to meet those goals, even if the final negotiations don’t get to the finish line.

We’re proud of the work we do at Emerging Ag with a broad range of stakeholders who are taking on specific programming to make a difference in this space. We have a lot more work to do.

Catch my reflections of #COP30 below:

Charting the Direction for Agrifood Action After COP30