Agriculture in Action: SAN Member Highlights from the Week of July 21, 2025 🌾

Across continents, SAN member organizations continue to champion sustainable agriculture through bold innovations, educational outreach, and collaborative engagement. Here’s a look at how our network members advanced SAN’s mission this week—demonstrating real-world action toward climate resilience, ecosystem restoration, and farmer empowerment.

🌱 Climate-Smart Agriculture & IPM

CABI spotlighted the value of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), combining biological, chemical, and cultural tools to grow healthy crops while reducing pesticide dependence. They also emphasized the vulnerability of global banana production to pests and diseases, underscoring the urgency of sustainable crop protection and providing a handy guide to pests in this crop.

CORAF continued its influential work across West and Central Africa, highlighting nature-based innovation and agroecology through strategic workshops and regional partnerships. Notably, they celebrated a major gathering in Cotonou for validating the Climate-Smart Agriculture Regional Program (PRAIC-AO), participated in a regional workshop on agricultural pests and diseases, and led RADiUS consortium training in Dakar—advancing financial and knowledge management for agroecological transitions.

The regional workshop on the technical validation and budgeting of the PRAIC-AO was organized by CORAF with support from CGIAR, CIAT, the World Bank and the European Commission.

🧵 Traceability and Regeneration

CottonConnect showcased multiple sustainability efforts this week. Through its REEL Cotton and REEL Regenerative programmes, farmers are gaining access to climate-smart sowing calendars, bio-inputs, and water-efficient techniques. CottonConnect also contributed to the WTiN Innovate conference, advocating for sustainable supply chains and hosted a Business Fights Poverty forum on cross-sector collaboration.

Preferred by Nature released a new tool to support compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation, in the shape of an instructional document to understand the role of authorised representatives.

🐝 From Beekeeping to Biodiversity

PELUM Uganda delivered a robust week of action, with field initiatives ranging from training more communities to develop beekeeping enterprises to community resource mapping, to farmer training using videos from the Knowledge Hub for Organic Agriculture. They also participated in the first African Chefs Gathering and promoted the Agricultural Awards celebrating innovation in Ugandan agriculture.

The first African Chefs gathering was organized by Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa and Pelum Uganda had a chance to present their experiences in food production and innovation.

🌿 Empowering Local Biodiversity and Landscapes

Fundación Natura Colombia celebrated Santa Marta’s 500th anniversary with a public agenda focused on biodiversity, culture, and community conservation, emphasizing civil society’s role in protecting natural heritage

In the panel "Conservation experiences in Santa Marta", led by Fundación Natura, participants discussed how conservation is a task for multiple stakeholders: civil society, rural communities, institutions, and territories should work together to protect biodiversity.

Fundación Global Nature continued its long-standing commitment to environmental education with high-participation summer workshops at Espai Natura in Torreblanca, engaging families in local biodiversity conservation.

🌽 Food Sovereignty and Traditional Crops

RAAA Perú promoted soil biodiversity and advocated for the expansion of purple corn cultivation in Peru’s Yungas zone, a crop with both nutritional and medicinal value. They also raised alarm over pesticide contamination in Lima’s food supply, linking it to consumer health risks—a reminder of the need for robust monitoring and agroecological alternatives.

🌎 Global Voice on Overshoot Day

Rainforest Alliance marked Earth Overshoot Day with a call to transform food systems “one farmer, one community at a time.” Their messaging highlighted the urgency of shifting to sustainable production to stay within planetary boundaries.

🔚 Conclusion: A Network Moving in Unison

From Africa to Latin America, SAN members are weaving together local innovations and global advocacy to regenerate ecosystems, empower farmers, and protect food systems. These updates reflect the SAN Strategic Plan’s pillars: climate action, ecosystem services, equity, and collaboration.

📣 Stay informed by subscribing to SAN’s newsletter and following us on social media to see how our network is transforming agriculture—week by week, action by action.