Soil health is the foundation of sustainable food systems, ecosystem resilience, food security, as well as climate mitigation and adaptation. Yet, over one-third of the Earth’s surface is degraded, affecting 3.2 billion people globally. Though smallholders farmers play a critical role in maintaining healthy soil, they often lack access to necessary knowledge and resources. There are also few policies that incentivize farmers to invest in practices to improve soil health. 

This event will explore the socio-economic, policy, and practical aspects of conserving and enhancing soil health for food security and resilience. It will bring together soil policy advocates, researchers, investors, businesses, government, and farming communities to discuss strategies for integrating soil health into national and international policies, financing mechanisms, and on-the-ground practices. 

It will highlight the financial challenges faced by smallholder farmers and discuss innovative financing mechanisms to support the transition to regenerative practices. It will underscore the need for robust monitoring systems to inform evidence-based policy frameworks, address knowledge gaps, and track progress in soil conservation. 

It will address the critical need for multi-stakeholder action to enhance soil health, emphasizing the importance of integrated approaches that span across climate, land degradation, and biodiversity agendas. The discussion will focus on creating an equitable, transparent and multi-stakeholder enabling environment that supports sustainable land management and benefits smallholder farmers.

The event will serve as a platform to share ongoing work, such as IUCN’s Land Health Monitoring Framework and the Red List of Soil Species, as well as CIFOR-ICRAF’s research on soil health in the tropics. It will also feature the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health’s Call to Action, which aims to galvanize global commitment to embrace, adapt and endorse the critical role of soil health for a healthy planet and to accelerate multi-stakeholder efforts that will ultimately contribute to achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) goals and the integration of soil health in climate (Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs) and biodiversity agendas (National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs).