Global leaders increasingly recognize that agriculture and food systems must be part of solutions to the climate crisis. From the first Food Systems Pavilion at a UN climate conference in 2022, to 160 countries recognizing food and agriculture as a climate imperative in 2023, food advocates came into the 2024 UN climate conference, COP29, with wind in our sails. We made progress, but the world needs to do more — and quickly.
As we close out the year and look ahead to COP30 in late 2025, significantly more work remains to ensure farmers, fishers and ranchers can feed a growing population and lower climate pollution from food systems.
Here are four reflections from EDF and our partners about the progress made this year and the urgent work that remains to make farms and food systems more resilient, sustainable and equitable.
1. Adaptation and mitigation are two sides of the same coin
Food systems and agriculture are intrinsically tied to climate. This relationship has been underappreciated and misunderstood, but there is an increasing appreciation of its role in both adaptation and mitigation solutions.
The impacts of climate-induced droughts, heat waves, floods, land pressures, and polluted air and waterways are sounding an alarm that can’t be ignored. Extreme weather is putting our global food systems at greater risk. At the same time, these impacts are exacerbated by our current food production practices.
If we don’t adapt to these challenges well, we will “maladapt,” which is what we are seeing around the world. Excess fertilizer use, burning of forests to grow crops and graze livestock, and increased soil degradation have long-term consequences. We must do more to support producers in adapting to climate risks, while also enabling them to reduce super-pollutants like methane and nitrous oxide.
2. The food systems movement is becoming more unified
Food is a complicated sector, and there are a lot of voices. We have made progress and evolved rapidly to unify the food and agriculture community in global climate processes, but the urgency of our situation calls for more.
The food system is expansive, including people working the land and sea, packaging and processing operations, multinational corporations and policymakers. While summing up a global convening as a “win” or “loss” is difficult in this complex ecosystem, we need to celebrate the forward momentum coming out of COP29.
Even though food systems voices are the “new players” in the climate space, the community has become more cohesive, nuanced and pragmatic in the last few years. This trend must continue as we look ahead to COP30.
3. Countries have more support to achieve food-related climate commitments
We need to bring people together around a diversity of solutions, including supporting countries more directly.
COP29 saw increased support to help countries revise and achieve their climate commitments. For agriculture and food systems, this included mobilizing and aligning a coalition of actors to help countries act on agricultural methane solutions feasible today. EDF and partners launched an AIM for Climate sprint to galvanize and align global research and investments into animal health solutions that help meet climate and nutrition goals in tandem. And a new tool launched this year will help countries chart a path forward to lower food-related emissions through their Nationally Determined Contributions.
Governments and farmer organizations at COP29 emphasized the need to understand what people are already doing on the ground, and how to fit would-be interventions and solutions to current realities. We saw a large appetite for the role of bringing together disparate communities and voices to try and find common ground, including around lower-methane food system solutions and around common principles to guide high-quality climate finance for agriculture and food systems.
4. Climate finance investments must include farmers
We need to recognize an expanded “return on investment” related to producers and food system actors.
To allow producers around the world to be part of the solution, we need to shift how we value them. In addition to contributing to food security, they are stewards of the land and play a critical role in building long-term resilience to shocks and stresses.
To adopt more climate-resilient practices, they need high-quality finance and an enabling environment that values longer-term resilience vs shorter-term returns. We can better identify and support value along the food system and increase support for climate-smart processes.
Organizations like One Acre Fund are doing essential work to close the climate finance gap for smallholder farmers.
The world can’t achieve climate, economic development or food security goals without supporting farmers, ranchers and other food producers in lowering emissions and building resilience. EDF and our partners will continue working to identify and implement effective solutions, and we invite others to join us on the road to COP30.