TERRA: Bringing Agroecology into the COP30 Mainstream

‘PAS’ stands for the ‘Plan for the Acceleration of Solutions.’ ‘TERRA’ ‘Together for Expanding Resilient and Restorative Agroecology and Agroforestry.’ Spearheaded by NOW’s close partners, the Brazil’s Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming (MDA), TERRA leads the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference action agenda for the mainstreaming of Agroecology and Agroforestry (A&A).

 

This process, which started already before Belém, will advance concrete solutions over the long term, reporting back to the global community at consecutive COPs, the 2028 UN Global Stock Take and the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) summit.

TERRA is NOW Partners Foundation’s response to one of humanity’s great challenges, that despite its complexity, can be resolved by innovation. On the ‘challenge’ side, our current mainstream of agrifood and forestry systems is responsible for over 25% of GHG (global greenhouse gas) emissions and over 75% of biodiversity loss. Globally it has already degraded hundreds of millions of hectares of farmland to the point that they can no longer be used. Brazil alone has lost over 80 million hectares. 

Among other challenges, the current mainstream also fails to provide food security, equitable farming incomes and attractive futures for young farmers. Like with other 18th – 20th century technologies, we pay for the benefits with heavy side effects that systematically deteriorate ecosystems and therefore threaten societies and economies.

TERRA contributes to developing and implementing systemic innovations that when, over the coming decades, they scale into the new mainstream, can reverse many past damages and create new opportunities, including for Indigenous Peoples, traditional communities and the over 600 million smallholder farmers who provide the majority of our food but often face hunger and poverty. 

Already today, the most innovative A&A solutions significantly increase farmer incomes, overall economic opportunities and social justice. They strengthen soil fertility and yields, food and water security, healthy nutrition, biodiversity and the climate. They regenerate degraded land and help to reverse desertification. For all farm sizes, innovative A&A offers systemic solutions that integrate environmental, social and economic sustainability.

TERRA recognizes that to accelerate the transition to A&A, we need to increase multi-sector collaboration, called ‘multirao’ at COP30. Such collaboration needs to integrate the mutually reinforcing strengths of all relevant stakeholders, including farming communities, research institutions, civil society, the private and finance sector, local and national governments and multilateral institutions.

TERRA acts on five "acceleration levers”:

Besides co-leading TERRA’s secretariat, NOW will co-lead the development of the Granary of Solutions that highlights and advances the development and implementation of the world’s most innovative and scalable Agroecology and Agroforestry (A&A) approaches that share the above-mentioned benefits. The success of these solutions demonstrates that highly innovative A&A can indeed become the new mainstream.

An example for highly innovative and scalable A&A is India’s Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming (APCNF) that in only 9 years has expanded from 40,000 to 1.2 million farmers. By 2030, APCNF will be used by over 50% of Andhra Pradesh’s 6 million smallholder farmers. This demonstrates that highly innovative A&A approaches can become the new mainstream that integrates environmental, social and economic sustainability.

 

NOW partners with APCNF’s founders RySS to respond to the request of over 50 countries to adapt APCNF to their contexts. A growing number of proof of concept projects are under way in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

An example for comprehensive Blended Finance are the regenerative palm oil, acai, cacao and multi-cropping projects that NOW helps to scale and finance in Brazil. Corporate buyers include Natura, LatAm leading cosmetic group and the public school meal program PNAE. Carbon credits generate extra income. A guarantee fund facilitates access to public low-interest loans. International investors help to finance the transition and increased mechanization that reduce costs and risks, while increasing productivity and farming incomes.

Large-scaling innovative solutions is not reduced to AI that will also play an important role in the A&A transition. When NOW’s partners helped to pioneer such innovations as renewable energy, micro finance and impact investing, most stakeholders could not imagine that they would scale so widely. Today, we face the same disbelief regarding the scaling of A&A. But solutions that so clearly offer better outcomes eventually win. This process can be significantly accelerated if we work together with a clear vision that A&A is not a niche but an emergent mainstream.

Co-founded by NOW with leading A&A innovators and implementers from around the world, GA supports the co-innovation between leading approaches that rarely have the opportunity to learn from each other. GA also supports the development and expansion of innovative capacity building and scaling approaches that accelerate capacitation, enable large scale implementation and offer business and finance training for farmers to increase their economic opportunities. (www.globalacademy.world)

An example for this co-innovation and capacity building is the development of Centers for Co-Innovation and Capacity Development (CCCDs) in key regions of Brazil where APCNF will be integrated with the best A&A methods from Brazil and other countries to strengthen ongoing innovation. This initiative was born from a learning journey to APCNF that NOW co-organized with RySS and MDA for leaders of Brazilian farmer organizations representing over 3 million Brazilian farmers.

Another example are the Escolas International por Florestas Productivas: GA also partners with Brazil’s MDA ministry in co-founding these Global Academies for Productive Forests that were also launched at COP30. Around the world these Academies will have a specific focus on co-innovation and capacity-building for Agroforestry. Farmers will benefit from the most innovative A&A approaches as well as from business education for producers to strengthen their blended finance and market access opportunities.

To launch TERRA, its co-founders organized over 20 kick-off events at COP30. The first one was a dinner co-hosted in Belém by Brazil’s Ministry for Agrarian Development and Family Farming (MDA), NOW Partners Foundation and Global Academy. The evening was keynoted by MDA Minister Paulo Teixeira, Vice-Minister Fernanda Machiavelli, Productive Forest Secretary Moises Savian, NOW Founder Walter Link and other partners. Inspired by traditional Amazonian cuisine, farmers and leaders of A&A cooperatives, civil society organizations, business, finance and government strengthened their relationships and discussed how to mainstream A&A around the world.

Over the coming years events will be held around the world to strengthen the momentum to mainstream A&A. For this purpose, TERRA is developing also communication initiatives that will complement in-person engagement opportunities. 

The PAS TERRA is a joint initiative by MDA, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the FAO/Forest and Farm Facility (FFF), the Agroecology Coalition, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (CGIAR) and NOW Partners Foundation. Read the full press release from the Brazilian government here.

TERRA’s website is: www.terraactionagenda.org

 

Note: The international edition of forum future economy 01/2026 contains numerous articles about NOW partner projects. These include: Scaling Natural Farming Internationally and Key to solving the climate crisis.