The Cali conference underscored the urgency of an action that is now a necessity, no longer a choice, and must involve policy renewal and concrete commitments by companies
By Valeria Pagani-ofRenewable Matter
In recent years, the Conferences of the Parties on Biological Diversity (CBD) have seen intense and growing participation from civil society and the private sector among official policy discussions. At COP16 in Cali, the latter took a prominent role: companies in agrifood, information technology and new technologies, finance, and consumer goods spoke strongly about a “nature positive” future, the new mantra of a section of the industry.
The CGIAR, formally Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, has outlinednature-positive agriculture as “a regenerative, non-depleting and non-destructive use of natural resources to sufficiently meet the growing demand for food. It is designed through five main pillars of creating a sustainable food production system, namely: conserve, manage, restore, recycle and engage.” Although the conference also highlighted that integrating biodiversity into various economic sectors, particularly agriculture, is one of the keys to promoting a sustainable food production model, it actually achieved few concrete results in this direction.
The importance of regenerative agriculture
Agriculture and the food industry have always been the sectors “closest” to the environment and affect, depending on their practices, either negatively or positively the ecosystems in which they are embedded. To date, these sectors are responsible for just over a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, resulting from crop production activities, animal husbandry, land use change including deforestation and peatland reclamation, and pre- and post-production processes. Transforming agrifood systems now becomes a necessity, not a choice. According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development(WBCSD), transitioning about 40 percent of global agricultural land to regenerative practices, combined with ecosystem conservation and restoration, could not only help keep global warming within the 1.5°C limit, but also increase food system resilience, enhance biodiversity, ensure food security, and improve the quality of life of agricultural populations. However, despite the benefits, only about 15 percent of the world’s farmers today use regenerative agricultural practices. “The transformative potential of regenerative agriculture remains largely untapped, with a funding gap exceeding $300 billion per year,” pointed out Stefania Avanzini, Head of OP2B One Planet Business for Biodiversity, in the OP2B Five-Year Report Demonstrating progress on regenerative agriculture. This figure represents the amount needed to reach the goal of 40 percent transformed agricultural land.
Italy’s position
In contrast to the European Union’s investment in this new field, the Italian Parliament in November 2023 expressed its opposition to cell culture-derived products and passed a bill to ban the production, marketing, and importation of “synthetic” food and feed.
The law argues that this type of meat is unsafe for health and, at the same time, wants to protect products considered to be of “strategic importance to the national interest.” However, a position that could create a competitive disadvantage for Italian companies, instead of protecting them, and could stifle a nascent and dynamic industry. Besides the fact that there is no legal reason for Italy to anticipate such a risk assessment and management process.
Reforming agricultural policies
Despite growing awareness of the benefits of regenerative practices, conventional agriculture continues to dominate, with its many critical issues, from greenhouse gas emissions to ecosystem destruction. Agricultural policies, globally, are one of the keys to accelerating change, but they are not yet up to the challenge. GBF Goal 18, which aims to eliminate or reform subsidies harmful to biodiversity, was not discussed during COP16 in Cali, despite being one of the crucial aspects of incentivizing change in agricultural practices.
“The discussion on redefining incentives and regulations would have been included in the core indicators for Goal 18 of the Global Biodiversity Framework. Unfortunately, the COP did not have time to discuss it and adopt this agenda item,” explains Frederic Castell, Senior Natural Resources Officer of FAO’s Biodiversity Team. “It might be interesting to note, however, that between 2013 and 2018, FAO estimates that global agricultural support averaged nearly $630 billion per year, and only a third of that was subsidies. Agricultural support goes far beyond subsidies. It includes price incentives, trade mechanisms, infrastructure development and more.”
An important step forward was taken with the adoption of the Cali Fund, a multilateral mechanism for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the commercial use of digital sequence information (DSI) of genetic resources. Although voluntary, the fund will encourage large companies in the pharmaceutical, agribusiness, cosmetics, and nutraceutical sectors to allocate 1 percent of their profits or 0.1 percent of their revenues to the fund itself to benefit developing countries and indigenous peoples. Still a symbolic but important move to underscore the need for an equitable and shared commitment to protecting natural resources.
The agricultural policies of the European Union
The European Union has a significant role in implementing the GBF, with a series of laws and strategies that aim to consolidate the continent’s commitment to biodiversity. In November 2023, the EU unveiled its Biodiversity Strategy 2030, outlining concrete actions to restore biodiversity within the next decade: the Nature Restoration Law is one of the most ambitious measures. Nature restoration is seen as an investment that will yield an estimated return of 8 euros for every euro invested. However, there are also shadows.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is one of the main instruments for financing agriculture, has come under the spotlight for the risk of a weakening of its environmental measures. Despite reform intentions, in 2024 a majority of the European Parliament voted in favor of the Commission’s proposal that would weaken and make voluntary (and non-binding) many of the environmental regulations, such as those on the protection of permanent pasture or crop rotation. It is a step backward that jeopardizes the transition to sustainable agriculture in Europe. But as reminded during COP16 by Alvaro Lario, president of IFAD, “we don’t just need more finance for food systems, we need smarter finance. It is only by mobilizing private sector finance that we can build more resilient and sustainable food systems. Nature is a common good, and investing in its long-term viability yields returns, both economic and social.”
The private sector in the forefront
In parallel with policy commitments, the private sector is increasingly involved in shaping new models for sustainable agriculture. Agribusinesses, aware of the increasing focus on biodiversity and climate change, are adopting regenerative farming practices that promote soil health and conservation of natural resources. As Etifor CEO Alessandro Leonardi pointed out, “nature positive is the new keyword. It means embarking on a path that leads a company to think about risks, dependencies and opportunities related to the relationship it has with natural resources.”
Leonardi explains that the first step for any company is to map its suppliers, to understand where raw materials come from and how to take action to reduce environmental impacts. “All the regulatory frameworks and frameworks on this topic say that the priority goes to reducing impacts. There is a need to analyze farmers’ agricultural practices and figure out how to generate a positive impact, for example, by transforming conventional agriculture to regenerative and organic, or by gradually introducing agronomic practices that reduce emissions and improve biodiversity. Techniques such as green manure, which stimulate biological processes and improve ecosystem functions, are crucial to optimizing performance. Theapproach in settings must be applied to reduce impact within the value chain by acting directly on agricultural practices. We can define this in setting, namely: reducing impact through techniques that go to act within the value chain. Still a few agribusiness groups have begun to work on this issue, but internationally we are seeing that this is the trend.”
A trend that is already underway. In 2023, World Business Council for Sustainable Development and One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B) launched a regenerative agriculture working group (RAM), involving 52 members and 33 partners focused on the agribusiness sector, involving more than 1,100 companies, including big names such as Nestlé and Unilever. The goal is to develop new metrics and guidelines for measuring and communicating the impacts of regenerative agriculture, with the hope that these actions can be integrated into public policy to accelerate the transition to more sustainable practices. To date, they have co-developed a list of cross-sectoral regenerative agriculture outcomes aligned with key sustainability frameworks, planetary boundaries and the UN SDGs by identifying indicators and metrics that are most closely aligned with key sustainability frameworks and reporting and disclosure standards. These results can be consulted to help accelerate large-scale public and private investments.
COP16 in Cali was therefore a moment to highlight theurgency of agribusiness transformation. Agricultural policies, both at the global and national levels, are essential to promote deep and lasting change. However, without concrete corporate commitment and agricultural policy reform that incentivizes regenerative and sustainable practices, the road to nature-positive agriculture will remain a chimera.
