Events

Launch of The State of Food and Agriculture 2025 – Addressing land degradation across landholding scales

Rome (Italy), 03/11/2025

The 2025 edition of The State of Food and Agriculture report, “Addressing land degradation across landholding scales”, underscores the critical role of land in global agrifood systems. It highlights mounting pressures from land degradation, deforestation, and unsustainable management and presents new evidence on how land degradation increasingly threatens agricultural productivity and food security, with particular attention to how challenges and solutions differ across farm sizes, land conditions and socioeconomic factors. The report calls for strengthened land governance and tailored policies to align private and public incentives as well as local and global actions to address land degradation and restore productivity, safeguarding the future of our agrifood systems.

Opened by the FAO Director-General, the high-level panelists will share their experiences in the discussion “What incentives and barriers affect landholder action on land degradation, and how can policy better respond across scales?”. The panel will involve a rich discussion with perspectives from different countries, from various regions.

Agenda


Moderator: Ms Thin Lei Win, Journalist

12:30

Moderator welcome, Ms Thin Lei Win and SOFA Curtain raiser film 

Opening remarks by Mr QU Dongyu, Director-General, FAO

12:45

SOFA 2025 in a nutshell Presentation by the Agrifood Economics and Policy Division, FAO 

13:00

Panel – Speakers (tbc) 

What incentives and barriers affect landholder action on land degradation, and how can policy better respond across scales? 

Participants: 

  • H.E. Mabouba Diagne, Minister for Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, and Livestock of the Republic of Senegal; 
  • Budithi Rajsekhar, Special Chief Secretary, Agriculture and Cooperation Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Republic of India; 
  • H.E. Jhenifer María Mojica Flórez, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Colombia to FAO; 
  • H.E. Raed bin Mohammed Al Thukair, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to FAO; 
  • Ricard Ramon I Sumoy, Head of Unit, Policy Perspectives, European Commission 
  • Barron Joseph Orr, Chief Scientist, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) 

13:40

Moderator opens the floor for Q&A

13:55

Takeaways for moving forward by Mr Máximo Torero Cullen, Chief Economist, FAO