BUDAPEST, September 18 — The economic case for greening agrifood systems runs through water, soil and supply chains, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations used a two-day interregional dialogue here to press policymakers from Europe, Central Asia, the Near East and North Africa on the gap between stated ambition and delivery on the ground.
The gathering, organized jointly by the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and the FAO Regional Office for Near East and North Africa, brought together policymakers, technical experts and partners from the four regions. It officially launched FAO’s “Green Agriculture: A Stocktaking report” across FAO regions, alongside regional green agriculture policy assessments covering all FAO regions.
The dialogue built on the momentum of the 2025 Global Forum on Green Agriculture and marked the next step in deepening cooperation among regions that, despite their varied landscapes and agricultural systems, increasingly face common challenges.
Ambition outpaces implementation
The stocktaking report consolidates evidence from five regional policy assessments of green agriculture in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Near East and North Africa. Its central finding is blunt. Green agriculture cannot advance through isolated interventions, and requires coordinated action across agriculture, water, environment, climate, finance and rural development, connecting natural resources and production with supply chains, markets, consumption and waste management.
Across all five FAO regions, the report concludes that policy ambition continues to outpace implementation. The shared challenge is no longer a lack of ambition but the capacity to turn commitments into coordinated action at scale.
The analysis also shows that while countries are moving in the same broad direction, their starting points and priorities differ. In the Near East and North Africa, extreme water scarcity is the defining constraint, placing water productivity, fiscal and regulatory reform, and soil protection at the centre of the transition. In Europe and Central Asia, formal green strategies are widespread, but fragmented farm structures and limited advisory and green finance systems continue to constrain implementation at scale, underscoring the report’s call for policy coherence and stronger institutions across both regions.
Two regions, one set of constraints
Viorel Gutu, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia, said: “Green agriculture is of immense strategic importance for our two regions. It is the pathway to more resilient, more competitive and more inclusive agrifood systems. By connecting Europe and Central Asia with the Near East and North Africa, we can turn our diverse experience into shared solutions.
The challenges we face – from water scarcity to climate variability – do not stop at regional borders. Neither should our response.
This interregional dialogue is an opportunity to move from shared challenges to coordinated action and to accelerate the transition towards greener, more sustainable agrifood systems.” Delivering opening remarks on behalf of the Near East and North Africa region, AbdulHakim Elwaer, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa, joined the dialogue virtually. “There is no single pathway towards greening agriculture,” Elwaer said. “Transformation must respond to local realities while drawing on experiences and innovations from elsewhere – this is the value of interregional dialogue.
For the Near East and North Africa, one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions, greening agriculture means putting sustainable water management, healthy soils, biodiversity and resilient rural livelihoods at the centre of our efforts while strengthening the links among research, policy and action on the ground.”
Where the policy attention sits
Presenting the findings of the interregional stocktaking report on green agriculture, FAO Agricultural Officer Artur Shamilov noted that policy attention remains strongest around natural resources and green production – water, soil, land restoration, climate resilience and biodiversity – while green supply chains and sustainable consumption, food loss and waste remain far less developed, despite that stronger supply chains are essential for sustaining gains made at farm level.
The report identifies seven mutually reinforcing priorities for moving from commitment to implementation: aligning policy, planning and financing; strengthening institutions and governance; strengthening data, digital and monitoring systems; scaling inclusive innovation and technology; accelerating circularity and resource efficiency; embedding inclusion, equity and participation; and coordinating regional and international support.
Over the two days of the dialogue, participants reflected on the findings of the stocktaking report and the regional green agricultural assessments, promoting policy coherence and intersectoral coordination, strengthening understanding of adaptive governance, and exchanging interregional experience, good practices and policy innovation. The goal was to support countries in shifting from fragmented, sector-by-sector approaches towards integrated, adaptive governance that drives coordinated green agriculture and more resilient agrifood systems. Technical experts from ministries of agriculture in both regions took part, alongside representatives of regional and international organizations.
The dialogue applied FAO’s wider systems approach to agrifood systems transformation and the pathways set out under the Organization’s Reform 2026 agenda: moving from crisis response to resilience-building, from input-intensive to knowledge-intensive agrifood systems, from silos to synergies, and from global commitments.
For Central Asian agriculture, the practical test is whether the coherence the report calls for shows up in financing and advisory capacity
