Green agriculture’s contribution to transforming agrifood systems: the key role of green policies

By Tania Santivanez, Agricultural Officer, Responsible of Green Agriculture Initiative, FAO REU

Dear partners, colleagues and friends,

Welcome to the second edition of our green agriculture newsletter, fresh off the summer break.

As always, we bring you a curated selection of recent actions from the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, along with new publications that highlight our ongoing efforts to promote green agriculture for the transformation of agrifood systems.

How can green agriculture help transform agrifood systems?

Green agriculture is a comprehensive and interdisciplinary framework for greening agrifood systems that guides transformation through the use of such environmental indicators as land, soil and water management; pesticide use; agrobiodiversity; greenhouse gas emissions; ecological footprint; and food miles. These indicators, which aligned with the Food Systems Dashboard and the Food Systems Countdown Initiative indicators, play a crucial role in assessing and steering the transition towards greener agrifood systems.

Green policies are foundational to climate and environmental improvements along the value chain, not only setting the framework but also driving tangible change across the sector — making them indispensable to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals

We can look to numerous recent events to illustrate the importance and impact of these policies. We are particularly excited to share insights from the regional conference Advancing on green policies for agrifood systems transformation in Europe and Central Asia. The three-day event, held 29–31 May in Yerevan, Armenia, focused on green policies to transform agrifood systems, emphasizing the importance of leveraging science, policy, innovation and technology to drive green transformation in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Republic of Moldova and Uzbekistan. At the conference, attendees shared their experiences and learned more about green policies around the world, underscoring our commitment to advancing green agrifood systems both regionally and globally.

The Green Agriculture project is expanding its focus beyond Europe and Central Asia with the launch of the Green Connect Initiative. This initiative advances interregional learning by further developing the Regional Technical Platform on Green Agriculture, creating an enabling environment for greening agrifood systems. It offers a multifaceted approach inspired by exemplary models and experiences from various regions and covers such technical areas as natural resources, biodiversity, green production, supply chain, consumption and food loss and waste. The initiative promotes knowledge sharing, policy analysis, expert webinars, capacity building, cross-regional study tours, innovation labs and on-the-ground pilot programmes.

In this edition of the newsletter, we feature opinion editorials from two esteemed members of the Green Agriculture Experts’ Group, including a piece from Shaikh Tanveer Hossain discussing how green policies are transforming agrifood systems in Asia.

Additionally, we reflect on our participation in the Tenth Regional Dialogue of the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) in Georgia and the EU CAP Network’s workshop on promoting pollinator-friendly farming in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The LANDNET workshop in Middelburg, Kingdom of the Netherlands, celebrated 100 years of land consolidation in Europe, further emphasizing our commitment to sustainable practices.

Looking ahead, the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia will soon launch a call for practices to populate the Regional Technical Platform on Green Agriculture’s Green Practices Repository, which showcases evidence, policies, practices and science on green agriculture themes. The repository also facilitates interactive collaboration among stakeholders and accelerates the dissemination of best practices.

As we gear up for a productive second half of the year, I wish you all a great start.