AGRICULTURE
LITTLE HEADWAY
MAJOR GAP
Food appeared only once in the final negotiated text, narrowly framed as "climate-resilient food production" under the Global Goal on Adaptation.
A griculture is at the heart of the climate problem: it feeds the world, emits nearly a third of global greenhouse gases and suffers heavily from climate impacts. Yet at coP30 in Brazil, one of the world's agricultural powerhouses,
food-system reform barely featured. Hopes that hosting the summit in the Amazon might force governments to confront the links between industrial farming and deforestation were swiftly dashed. Food appeared only once in the final negotiated text, narrowly framed as "climate-resilient food production" under the Global Goal on Adaptation. Language under the Mitigation Work Programme was diluted too, shifting from tackling the "drivers" of deforestation to the vaguer "challenges". Nowhere is there acknowledgement that industrial agricul-ture accounts for the vast majority of global forest loss.
The formal track on agriculture-the Sharm el-Sheikh joint work programme-made little headway. Talks ran for just three days before being punted to next June in Bonn. The draft text bundles together holistic approaches such as agroecology with a grab-bag of corporate favourites-precision agriculture, Artificial Intelligence and carbon offsets were inserted late in the day by several developed countries. Critics say these "solutions" entrench industrial models and sideline farmers.
Finance remains the biggest sticking point. Developing countries want predictable public funding to help smallholders adapt and to integrate agriculture into national climate plans. Rich countries show scant appetite for offering it. Meanwhile, agribusiness-highly visible in Belém's bustling AgriZone and woven into national delegations-worked to keep food-system reform off the negotiating table. Outside the talks, voluntary initiatives under the "action agenda" trumpeted support for smallholders and methane cuts. But without standards or scrutiny, such pledges risk becoming public-relations cover for polluting firms.
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Down To Earth
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