The world needs a new food revolution. Here's how to empower farmers to make it happen

Over the past 30 years, my colleagues and partners have been advocating for farmers to have a voice in global development discussions. While renewable energy technologies and AI regulations often take centre-stage, the remarkable progress in sustainable agriculture has sometimes been overlooked.

But 2025 is different. Food systems are finally on the main agenda at major international meetings like the UN Food Systems Summit and COP30 climate change conference. It's time to rethink how we incentivize farmers' work and recognize the impact of sustainable agriculture. Now that farmers have a seat at the table, it's time to reward them for putting food on it too.

My journey in sustainable agriculture began in the 1970s, a time of great instability in India. Droughts and famines threatened the lives and livelihoods of farmers. Our company, UPL, played a crucial role in strengthening domestic agricultural productivity by working closely with farmers, understanding their needs and developing products that advanced their farming practices.

The policy environment was instrumental in transforming India's agricultural sector. Once plagued by famine, the country's food system is now one of the world's largest and most reliable exporters. The Green Revolution was key to this change, with the government implementing policies to ensure food security and incentivize farmers to grow enough crops to meet domestic needs.

However, growing major food crops like rice, wheat and sugarcane presents new challenges. A lack of crop diversity can leave the food system vulnerable to droughts, pests and diseases. These obstacles force the agricultural sector to learn and adapt to the changing environment.

Today, India collaborates with the private sector to tackle contemporary challenges. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have been effective in driving widespread change in sustainable agriculture. Through my co-chairing of the World Economic Forum’s Food Action Alliance, we've worked with sugar producers to develop a sustainable sugar value chain in the country and address issues caused by crop diversity loss.

India continues to innovate in food systems policy to encourage farmers to adopt sustainable practices, diversify their crops and adapt to a rapidly changing climate. Its agricultural boom offers important lessons for other countries, especially as agriculture plays a key role in global development discussions this year. This discussion should focus on three key areas: resilience, resources and rewards.

Recent volatility in commodity markets highlights the need for these changes. Coffee is a prime example. The price of Arabica beans has increased by more than 80% within the past year. When a commodity becomes a bull market, farmers reap the rewards. But to avoid cyclical boom and bust, we need mechanisms and tools that build resilience for growers of all crops in the face of increased volatility in price, climate and trade in the long term.

To achieve this, farmers need the right resources to provide greater consistency and predictability between feast and fallow years. One solution is to build a coalition of governments, food systems actors and financial institutions to improve access to parametric micro-insurance. Such policies cover farmers for weather risk, price volatility and non-germination of seeds, protecting smallholders from uncertainty and encouraging investment in climate-smart seeds and crop protection products.

PPPs can also help growers cultivate crops sustainably outside traditional policy-making spaces. We launched the First Movers Coalition for Food, a World Economic Forum initiative aimed at reducing emissions from high-carbon sectors. With a shared goal of reaching net-zero by 2025, the coalition commits to procuring sustainably grown crops and sustainably produced food items. This creates a demand signal for farmers – via a ready market – that incentivizes them to adopt practices that help decarbonize their food production methods.

Another strategy is transitioning farmers from one crop to another. In Zambia, we've worked closely with the government and farmers to move from drought-prone crops like maize to sorghum, a hardier crop suited to climate-stressed environments. This wouldn't have been possible without PPPs and demonstrates how programmes like the Food Action Alliance and the First Movers Coalition for Food can drive similar crop diversification plans by creating a market for resilient crops in other regions.

Rewards play a crucial role in this transition. The explosion of innovation in renewable energy over the past two decades was enabled by catalytic policies, subsidies and deregulation that incentivized investment. For agriculture to truly transition to a sustainable model, governments and farmers should collaborate to explore similar incentives, ensuring that innovation is not stifled by outdated regulations and that sustainable practices are rewarded.

We need to harness incentives and protections that have worked for other sectors and empower farmers to lead a new green revolution.