From Vision to Action: Inside SAN’s 2025 General Assembly and Sustainable Agriculture Conference
- Communications
- Jun 19
- 5 min read
This week in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan, the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) brought together over 100 participants from across the globe for the 2025 General Assembly and Sustainable Agriculture Conference. Held in one of Indonesia’s most biodiverse landscapes, the event was more than a series of meetings — it was a dynamic and inspiring platform to exchange knowledge, share grounded innovations, and shape the future of sustainable agriculture.
From local farmer cooperatives to global experts in biodiversity finance, our members and partners demonstrated what transformation looks like when it's collaborative, inclusive, and rooted in local realities.
From Practices to Systems: Regenerating Agriculture from the Ground Up
Across Thursday’s full-day technical sessions — under the theme Sustainable Agriculture for Biodiversity and Participatory Design — SAN members showcased how real agricultural systems can serve both people and the planet.
🌾 Kaleka: From Monoculture to Regenerative Agroforestry
In Central Kalimantan, Kaleka is working with smallholders to reclaim soil fertility and biodiversity in oil palm landscapes through regenerative intercropping. In four villages across Seruyan and Kotawaringin Barat, farmers are integrating trees like durian, rambutan, and coconut alongside horticultural crops such as chili and cassava. Their monitored plots have shown:
An 83% increase in soil organic matter
A significant rise in earthworm populations across soil depths
Reductions in turbidity and nitrate levels in nearby water bodies
This landscape regeneration isn’t just environmental — it’s economic and cultural. Farmers track practices in logbooks and receive technical support while reconnecting to diverse agricultural traditions.
🌿 Yayasan Setara Jambi: The Power of Local Wisdom
Setara introduced us to Lubuk Larangan, a community-led river conservation model rooted in customary law. By designating sacred no-fishing zones and replanting riparian vegetation, communities in Jambi province are restoring ecosystem functions and reviving collective governance. This initiative is legally anchored through village regulations and reinforced by traditional sanctions — like cleaning riverbeds or feeding the community — for violations.
The results? Cleaner water, improved aquatic biodiversity, and stronger social cohesion — proving that regeneration can be led by tradition as much as by technology.
🌴 Wild Asia: Regenerating Industrial Oil Palm
In Malaysia, Wild Asia is scaling regeneration inside one of the world’s most controversial sectors: oil palm. Their WAGS BIO model transforms conventional blocks into low-carbon, biodiversity-rich zones through:
Natural mulching and grass cutting to build soil structure
Biochar and compost as organic fertilizers
Earthworm enrichment and improved water infiltration
Their work spans 35,000 hectares, supports over 3,000 smallholders (60% Indigenous, 33% women), and is supported by a digital onboarding app that streamlines traceability and farmer support.
Tools, Frameworks, and Finance: Making Biodiversity Visible and Valuable
📏 Biodiversity Metrics Tailored to Agriculture
Accurately tracking biodiversity gains in farms is essential — but many tools are built for conservation areas, not productive landscapes. Members and allies tackled this challenge head-on:
Fundación Global Nature presented a paired-plots “rolling baseline” methodology that captures real-time biodiversity trends using soil invertebrates, flora, birds, and more.
Dr. Tim Coles of rePLANET explained how the Wallacea Trust Methodology calculates biodiversity gain units (BU/ha), enabling high-integrity biodiversity credits — vital for projects looking to finance conservation through results-based mechanisms.
Jordi Domingo emphasized the importance of using multiple taxa and weighted species values to ensure credibility and comparability across landscapes.
These tools are not only science-based — they’re designed to mobilize finance by connecting biodiversity outcomes with ESG markets.
🛠️ SAN’s Biodiversity Assessment Framework: Bridging the Gap
One of the most anticipated sessions was Oliver Bach’s unveiling of SAN’s new biodiversity assessment approach, built to support smallholders. Based on an analysis of ten leading frameworks, SAN found that:
Most tools are too complex or expensive for smallholders
Few systems assess pesticide reduction, habitat quality, or agroecosystem resilience
Market linkages are weak or non-existent for farmers implementing improvements
In response, SAN is designing an affordable, participatory, and scientifically credible tool aligned with the SDGs, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and SAN’s own strategic goals. This system will:
Use both farm- and landscape-level indicators
Be implemented through SAN’s Community Monitoring and Advisory System (CMAS) and lead farmer networks
Integrate with certification schemes and sustainability programs to unlock incentives
This work is a milestone in positioning SAN as a global leader in biodiversity-smart agriculture.
🤝 Network Building and Collective Intelligence
The event wasn’t just about tools and case studies — it was also a space to co-create SAN’s shared vision for the decade ahead.
Think tank sessions explored the creation of a SAN Biodiversity Assessment Catalogue — a living, evolving repository of methods and indicators shared across the network.
Panel discussions highlighted needs for improved member-to-member learning, stronger regional hubs, and mechanisms to capture impact stories and translate them into policy influence.
Fundación Pachamama inspired us with its Jaguar Biocultural Credit system — a pioneering model that monetizes Indigenous-led biodiversity stewardship with technology like blockchain.
REEDS demonstrated how bio-composting animal waste reduces emissions and creates soil wealth in Pakistan’s arid zones, a practical win-win for productivity and regeneration.
Together, these efforts point to a future where SAN is not only a technical network — but a strategic platform for system-level change.
🌟 A Global Movement Rooted in Local Realities
In his keynote, Dr. Geoffrey Hawtin, 2024 World Food Prize Laureate, reminded us that agrobiodiversity is the keystone of food system resilience, and that protecting it is not optional — it is existential.
From the Amazon to the Andes, from Borneo to the Balkans, SAN members are proving that regeneration is already happening. What’s needed now is deeper integration, faster scaling, and bolder storytelling.
And what better place to do it than Indonesia — a country where the tensions between agricultural growth and ecological integrity are stark, but where solutions are also being forged every day by the people closest to the land.
🚀 What’s Next
This General Assembly is not an endpoint. It’s a springboard for our next phase of collaboration:
Piloting SAN’s biodiversity tool across regions
Scaling SAN’s Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture hubs
Elevating member innovations through global platforms and donor engagement
Building bridges to policy and finance to reward real impact on the ground
To our host Kaleka, thank you for your leadership and hospitality. To every participant, your contributions are building a stronger, more agile, and more impactful network.
Let’s carry this spirit forward — into our projects, partnerships, and strategies. Let’s be brave, grounded, and radically collaborative.
The future of sustainable agriculture isn’t written yet. We are writing it together.
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