Healthy soil is essential for ecosystem restoration, biodiversity conservation, food security and nutrition, and climate mitigation and adaptation. At the COP30 plenary session “From Policy to the Ground: Scaling Action for Healthy Soil”, governments, development agencies, farmer organizations, and youth networks came together to reflect on how policies can drive real change for soil health, and it must be brought into the center of climate negotiations.

From 10–21 November 2025, delegates from UN Member States, civil society organizations, the research community, Indigenous peoples, youth, non-profit organizations, the private sector, and more, came together in Belém, Brazil to drive the future of the global climate agenda. 

Representation from diverse groups is paramount to ensuring the voices of all are heard, and central to the approach from the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH). At this year’s COP, we centred youth voices, presented experiential learning from farmer-centred food security initiatives, called for increased attention to soil health as a climate solution from policy and financial stakeholders, and stressed the need for approaches to be rooted in Indigenous knowledge and value systems. The CA4SH Secretariat participated in 20 unique sessions across the Action on Food Hub, Brazil Pavilion, Food & Agriculture Pavilion, Spanish Pavilion, and the Nordic Pavilion, and we supported our network of partners and collaborators by promoting their engagements through our annual #COPSoil landing page.

Read on for an overview of our engagements at COP, positioning soil health as a key climate solution with co-benefits for global food security, biodiversity, sustainable landscapes, and rural livelihoods.

The Global Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) Conference is more than a knowledge exchange platform; it is a platform to incite climate action in agriculture. Immediately preceding the UN Climate Conference (UNFCCC COP30) taking place in Belem, Brazil, organizers of the 2025 CSA conference saw this year’s assembly as a critical opportunity to align on the future of food and agriculture ahead of COP30.

As an organization with action as a primary tenet, the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) was invited to co-chair the Soil Health and Plant Nutrition thematic session with partners from the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC). The session comprised two sub-sessions on 5th and 6th November, dedicated to finance and technology, respectively. Below, we summarize the innovations and key messages shared in these sessions, and chart a way forward for soil health at COP.

On 24 July, the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH), the Agroecology Coalition, the Coalition of Action on Healthy Diets from Sustainable FS for Children and All (HDSFS), and the Food is Never Waste Coalition convened an official side event at the UN Food Systems Stocktaking Moment (UNFSS STM+2) to discuss the link between agroecology, soil health and nutrition for all.