CCAC-FAST Joint Ministerial Meeting: Scaling Up Practical Solutions for Resilient Agri-Food Systems

Note: The meeting is open to all CCAC partner countries and all FAST Partnership members.

Agricultural and land management systems are at the forefront of the global climate challenge, facing complex issues including greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, biodiversity loss, and food security risks. Addressing these challenges requires practical, scalable solutions that prioritize the needs and knowledge of farmers, Indigenous Peoples, and rural communities.

Agrifood systems contributes significantly to emissions of short-lived climate pollutants, notably methane, which accelerates climate warming and impacts air quality and human health. Meanwhile, degraded lands reduce productivity and resilience, disproportionately affecting family farmers and traditional communities.

In response, concrete pathways toward solutions are moving into implementation:

• The Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) Agriculture Flagship focuses on reducing agricultural super pollutants through a farmer-to-farmer approach. This initiative supports knowledge sharing and peer learning to scale mitigation practices that improve both climate outcomes and livelihoods.
• The Resilient Agriculture Implementation for Net-Zero Land Degradation (RAIZ) initiative advances large-scale restoration of degraded agricultural lands, emphasizing local and regional contexts, traditional and Indigenous knowledge, and sustainable production practices.

Both approaches share a farmer-centric approach, recognizing that empowering those who work the land is critical for lasting impact.

To support the translation of these practical solutions into action, the Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST) Partnership contributes by highlighting opportunities to mobilize and scale climate finance for agrifood systems. As a COP-to-COP mechanism, FAST helps maintain momentum and visibility of pathways for making climate finance more accessible to vulnerable groups, including smallholder farmers, women, and Indigenous Peoples, which can in turn enable wider adoption of sustainable agricultural and land restoration practices.  

Objectives

This ministerial meeting aims to:

• Present the CCAC Agriculture Flagship and the RAIZ initiative as key practical solutions addressing urgent challenges in agriculture and land management.
• Highlight the farmer-centric approaches underpinning these efforts to ensure locally relevant and inclusive implementation.
• Showcase the role of the FAST Partnership in supporting mobilizing and aligning climate finance to support these solutions and vulnerable stakeholders.
• Reinforce the spirit of commitment and strengthen consensus on the importance of accelerating implementation and finance for agriculture and land-based climate action.
• Foster dialogue and collaboration among countries, development partners, and stakeholders on scaling these solutions ahead of COP30.