Soil is a crucial ingredient, not only in the production of healthy and delicious food, but also medicine, building materials, our clothes and fuel. Soil health is also at the front line of tackling climate change, through the carbon sequestration processes that soil enables.
However, despite the central role farming has, accounting for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, it has taken 27 Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change for agriculture to be granted a full day’s discussion.
In acknowledgment of the lag in investment in the farming industry, during this year’s COP27 there was the announcement of $8bn (£6.68bn) of funding led by a US-UAE joint initiative. The funding commitments are focused on reducing carbon emissions connected to food production, but also reducing the impact that chemicals used in the production of food have on our environment.
There was also an announced commitment from the Rockefeller Foundation to provide grants to 10 organisations scaling indigenous and regenerative agriculture practices around the world.
The variety of different solutions to sustainable agriculture promoted at this year’s COP really demonstrates the range of approaches needed to tackle this issue and highlights the requirement to overhaul the agricultural system.
Read the full story in ESG Clarity’s November 2022 digital magazine.
