Healthy soils are the foundation of sustainable and regenerative food systems and provide several vital ecosystem services. Sequestering carbon in soils, for example, can have multiple benefits for climate change mitigation and adaptation, food and nutrition security, biodiversity, and water resilience. However, there are few policies that incentivize farmers to invest in practices to improve soil health. This session will build on a set of policy briefs produced in December 2022 from Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Mali, Senegal and Zambia that highlight opportunities for the inclusion of soil health and soil organic carbon (SOC) into the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). To mitigate climate change measures to improve soil health and SOC needs to be integrated in updated NDCs and a better linkage to commitments within the UNCCD Land Degradation Neutrality targets (LDN) is required. The session will present concrete policy measures for soil health in NDCs based on the NDC guidance tool for food Systems.

Session objectives:

• Showcase examples of successful implementation of actions for soil health
• Learn about concrete measures to strengthen soil health in NDCS and LDN
• Present opportunities from policy analyses for integrating soil health into NDCs
• Bring together actors from government, research private sector, and development to scale healthy soil practices; and
• Garner support to implement robust, simple, yet accurate soil health monitoring.

Agenda

Welcome remarks

Speaker

Manyewu Mutamba

Head of Agriculture, African Union Development Agency/New Partnership for Africa's Development (AUDA/NEPAD)

Setting the scene

Speaker

Leigh Winowiecki

Global research leader: soil and land health, CIFOR-ICRAF
Co-lead,CA4SH

Panel discussion

Moderator: Leigh Winowiecki, Global Research Leader of Soil and Land Health, CIFOR-ICRAF; Co-lead of CA4SH

Speakers

Manuel Jarmillo

Director, Fundacion Vida Silvestre Argentina (FVSA)

Hans Olav Ibrekk

Policy Director, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway

Jack Hannam

President, British Society of Soil Science

Haseeb Bakhtary

Senior Consultant, Climate Focus

Laura Cramer

Thematic Lead, Climate-Smart Agriculture Policies and Priorities, AICCRA

Prem Prakash Budhathoki

Vice President, External Relations, IAAS World

Phoebe Mwangangi

Farmer, Makeuni Country, Kenya

Interactive Q&A

Moderator: Leigh Winowiecki, Global Research Leader of Soil and Land Health, CIFOR-ICRAF; Co-lead of CA4SH

Closing remarks

Speaker

Cathrine Mutambirwa

Programme Coordinator LDN and Land Restoration at Global Mechanism of the UNCCD