Agriculture is the central axis of the climate solution.

The 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), held in November in Belém, Pará, left behind a series of lessons learned. In practice, it represented more than just the continuation of the multilateral climate negotiation process built over the last three decades, marked by gradual progress, voluntary national commitments, and increasing geopolitical complexity. 

Held in the heart of the Amazon, the conference placed land use and food production at the center of the climate debate. The political significance of this stance is clear: the transition is no longer treated merely as an energy problem, but as a systemic equation involving climate, competitiveness, social inclusion, and food security. 

Under the chairmanship of Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago, COP30 was marked by a convergence-oriented approach, with an emphasis on pragmatism and implementation capacity, which helped to reduce the ideological noise surrounding agribusiness and to reposition tropical agriculture as part of the solution – not as an “obstacle” to be neutralized. 

This repositioning is extremely relevant because it alters the starting point of policies: if agriculture is the solution, then the regulatory design, financial mechanisms, and innovation priorities will reward those who deliver measurable results, not just generic commitments. 

Among the most consequential decisions, COP30 consolidated the principle of "Just Transition" as an effective axis of climate policy, making explicit the need to place rural producers, workers, and communities at the core of the choices and shift the discussion from abstract goals to concrete conditions for adoption. In other words, it is not enough to demand change; it is necessary to create the means – technical assistance, adaptation instruments, and real participation – so that the transformation is viable and socially legitimate. 

The critical point, however, is that the Just Transition only exists when there is a minimum infrastructure to operationalize it. In this sense, the Sustainable Agro Pact (PAS), launched by UPL in March 2025, is aligned with the spirit of the Conference's decisions. It was designed to prepare producers for a new scenario of environmental and market demands, especially in low-carbon certifications. By working with five cooperatives – Comigo (GO), Copasul (MS), Coplacana (SP), Holambra (SP) and Integrada (PR) – the PAS recognizes a key element that is often ignored: scale only happens when working through networks that are already widespread in the territory. 

The delivery of the PAS translates a global decision into practical capacity. 1.000 simplified sustainability reports, 1.000 carbon inventories, and 1.000 digital diagnoses of the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) will be made available free of charge, with completion at the end of the current soybean harvest, allowing for a complete overview of the agricultural cycle. This design creates predictability, reduces asymmetries, and addresses a central bottleneck of the new climate economy: without evidence and measurement, rural entrepreneurs cannot access markets or financing. 

Another key outcome of the Belém meeting was the increased ambition in adaptation, signaling that resources and mechanisms should focus on initiatives with credibility, good governance, and the use of verifiable indicators. This shifts the logic of the debate by treating adaptation as an investment, not an unavoidable cost, and reinforces the convergence between productive efficiency, risk reduction, and access to opportunities. 

For this capital to translate into real transformation, COP30 also highlighted – albeit indirectly – that technical capacity building is climate policy. Without applied knowledge, the best rules become bureaucracy and the best funding remains restricted. The Aplique Bem Program, created in 2007 by UPL in partnership with the Agronomic Institute (IAC), fills this gap by bringing training directly to rural properties. With more than 5 training sessions, impacting over 90 people in the country and operating in eight nations, the initiative demonstrates that environmental gains depend less on rhetoric and more on method and continuity. 

Nevertheless, the Conference exposed a gap that deserves to be noted: data infrastructure, traceability, and verification did not receive the centrality proportional to their role as a condition for access. In practical terms, this is where many producers may fall behind, even when the international narrative states otherwise. Programs like PAS help transform requirement into capacity and pressure into opportunity. 

The creation of AgriZone by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) served as a political and educational legacy of COP30, shifting agriculture away from a defensive perspective and positioning it as a showcase for solutions. UPL's participation, through Agrosfera and the global #AFarmerCan campaign, reinforced this narrative shift by giving visibility to farmers who reduce emissions, regenerate soils, conserve water, and protect biodiversity. 

In the end, the conference's main contribution was to consolidate the understanding that the climate transition will be built on reliable data, technical capacity building, access to financing, and productive inclusion. In this context, UPL positions itself as an active supporter of this agenda, continuously investing in innovation, technology, and business models capable of enabling a more efficient, resilient, and transparent production chain. Reimagining sustainability in food production thus ceases to be an aspirational concept and becomes a continuous process, built every day in the field and throughout the entire value chain. 

*Per Rogério Castro, CEO of UPL Brazil and agricultural engineer from the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA)