From the Field On the Road to COP30: The Region Prepares to Lead the Agri-food Transformation in the Face of Climate Change
From April 28 to 30, 2025, the Campus of the Americas of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT became a meeting point for leaders, negotiators, experts and government representatives from Latin America during the Regional Workshop on Agriculture and Climate Change - a key event to strengthen capacities, align visions, share experiences and prepare the region for the upcoming updates to its climate commitments, thus setting the course for the regional agri-food sector in the coming years.
For several years now, different studies and projections have highlighted the agricultural potential of Latin America and the Caribbean, recognizing it as a major global agricultural producer thanks to its natural wealth, diversity of climates and soils, agricultural heritage and availability of natural resources. Today, these are increasingly threatened by the challenges that climate change poses to the sector and the region. However, 2025 is proving to be a decisive year for positioning the agri-food sector as one of the key banners of Latin America and the Caribbean within the framework of international climate change action.
Firstly, the 2015 Paris Agreement (the most important international treaty on climate change) establishes that countries' Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - the mechanism through which countries outline their plans to contribute to emissions reduction and climate adaptation - must be updated every five years. Accordingly, 2025 corresponds to the third cycle of these updates, or the 'NDC 3.0' process, where countries face the challenge and opportunity of raising the ambition of their climate goals and commitments toward 2035. These new versions must not only reflect more ambitious commitments, but also decisively integrate the agri-food sector into mitigation, adaptation, financing and climate transparency strategies - a task that is not possible without solid technical and political preparation, accompanied by an articulated regional vision.
"Through the Alliance, we aim to link capacity building with the generation of scientific knowledge that is grounded in the realities of each region; from our side, we seek to contribute to this capacity strengthening, while also ensuring that climate change negotiations are science-based and, at the same time, reflect the needs of the region." —Deissy Martínez Barón, Climate Action Leader for Latin America and the Caribbean, Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT.
Deissy Martínez-Barón
Regional Lead, Climate Action in Latin America and the Caribbean
Secondly, during COP28 in Dubai in 2023, the first Global Stocktake was presented— a process designed to assess collective progress toward the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement. One of the most relevant outcomes of COP28 and the first Global Stocktake was precisely the recognition of agri-food systems as a fundamental part of the global climate agenda. The Emirates Declaration, signed by over 160 world leaders, consolidated the need to build sustainable and resilient agriculture as a driver of change in the face of global warming
Geidy Xiomara Ortega Trujillo - Vice Minister of Agricultural Matters at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Colombia (MADR) - mentioned that “we have strategies that have been developed and promoted in collaboration with FAO, such as climate-smart agriculture, systems that address risk management, but also the livestock, agricultural, economic, and community management components… these strategies must be replicated as fundamental elements of climate change adaptation.”
Finally, Latin America stands before a key opportunity as, in addition to the above, COP30 will be held at the end of 2025 in Belém, Brazil, which translates into greater visibility and a stronger voice for the region. This, in turn, demands solid methodologies, ambitious commitments and robust goals that place the region at the forefront of the global conversation toward sustainable and resilient agri-food systems.
In this context, the development of the Regional Workshop on Agriculture and Climate Change in Latin America became a vital platform to promote and strengthen a joint regional voice, attending to the general strategic moment, and focusing on supporting the NDC updating process.
The event, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Platform for Climate Action in Agriculture of Latin America and the Caribbean (PLACA), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, convened negotiators from the agricultural sector, representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture, Environment, and Finance, academic and technical experts, and regional climate action platforms.
“The importance of training this sector, or these negotiators, is to provide them with the tools to position agrifood systems on the climate action agenda, and to highlight the region’s perspectives—specifically, how the region can contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation through agrifood systems,” said Maria Mercedes Proaño, Climate Finance Officer, Coordinator of the Climate Change Unit, and Coordinator of the Climate and Environmental Finance Unit, FAO RLC.
Over three days, through collaborative work, the exchange of knowledge, practical tools, lessons learned and real solutions already being implemented in different countries to build viable pathways, identify synergies, and refine reporting and monitoring systems, bonds were intertwined, and the capacities of the teams that will represent the region in the upcoming climate negotiations— the SB62 in Bonn and COP30 in Belém— were strengthened.
Beyond the technical component, this meeting offered an enriching experience, where each delegation reflected its work within a broader regional framework, and where practical solutions on the ground— many of them born from rural communities— gained the prominence they deserve in the global agenda.
The region has much to say and even more to do. Agriculture is not only a victim of climate change: it is also one of the greatest allies in confronting it. From ancestral practices to the latest technological innovations, the Latin American agri-food sector holds a transformative potential that must be made visible, financed, and replicated.
This gathering has represented a unique opportunity to weave a joint agro-climatic vision that not only defends the region’s interests but also proposes concrete and contextualized solutions with a global impact. If we are to stay on the Paris Agreement pathway of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C or less, agriculture must be at the heart of climate action— and that journey begins here.
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