International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) | Source | Report |
Part of IUCN's Common Ground on Food and Agricultural Systems series, this report comparatively assesses the international, regional, and national law and policy frameworks needed to support sustainable agriculture, aimed primarily at policymakers, government officials, and legal scholars, especially in developing countries. It frames the urgency in stark terms: around 40-44% of the Earth's land surface is already used for agriculture, and the global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss worldwide. At the international level, the Rio Conventions (UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD) offer the strongest legal opening for embedding sustainable agriculture, particularly through the Global Biodiversity Framework's 2050 pathway and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, while non-binding instruments such as the SDGs, the Sendai Framework, and Codex Alimentarius provide complementary but less enforceable guidance. At the regional level, the report traces the EU's Common Agricultural Policy through the European Green Deal and Farm to Fork Strategy. At the national level — illustrated through case studies of Brazil, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, and Viet Nam — it recommends grounding Nature-based Solutions (NbS) directly in land-use planning and zoning law, alongside updated water and soil conservation, disaster risk management, and food safety frameworks, and calls for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and NBSAPs to be more fully leveraged to accelerate the transition to sustainable, biodiversity-supportive agriculture.
