Restoring Land, Redirecting Finance: Repurposing Public Support for a Just Rural Transition

This session makes the explicit argument that soil health cannot be restored at scale without redirecting current public support that drives degradation. The high-level panel brings together voices from finance, agriculture and climate to model the "cohesive narrative" Voices4JRT is trying to create. It will demonstrate the concrete link between agricultural subsidy reform, soil health, and food system resilience, using evidence from Voices4JRT focal countries (and Mongolia's rangeland context). It will also elevate farmer and civil society priorities from the ground for policy design, generate specific, actionable asks directed at the governments and financial institutions present at COP17, contribute to the Riyadh–Ulaanbaatar Action Agenda with commitments on redirecting agricultural public finance, and link/feed into the Special Ministerial and HighLevel dialogue on food systems and soil health, as well as supporting the synergies across the Rio conventions.