Following months of renewed farmers’ protests across Europe, the EU unveiled its highly anticipated ‘Vision for Agriculture and Food‘ on 19 February. According to its primary architect, European Commissioner for Agriculture, Christophe Hansen, this bold new strategy aims to “give back hope” to Europe’s aging and financially-beleaguered farming sector, with its producers reeling from “dramatic climate events,” weak “prices for their products and… political stress.”

Hansen has set out to strike a new compact with EU farmers, projecting a “farmer-friendly” image in Brussels, emphasising trust-building and working with, rather than against farmers, as was largely the case in the previous Commission’s now-discarded ‘Farm to Fork’ (F2F) agenda. Encouragingly, the EU executive has signaled its intention to abandon needlessly burdensome regulations exacerbating producers’ struggles in favour of tangible support to help foster a competitive and sustainable food system – a major step in the right direction for EU agri-food policy.

Unpacking Brussels’s change of course

Brussels’s new ‘Vision for Agriculture and Food’ is packed with ambitious pledges, from cutting red tape for farmers and rebalancing the food supply chain to curbing unfair trade practices and swapping punitive green rules for incentive-driven solutions. In pushing for fairer trade, the EU is eyeing stricter import rules to prevent hazardous pesticides banned in the EU from re-entering through foreign goods, thus leveling the playing field for European producers. On the domestic front, long-overdue reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) seek to redirect subsidies away from large landowners toward small farms, young farmers and those in environmentally-sensitive areas. Simplifying bureaucracy is equally a priority for making EU funding more accessible to the farmers who need it most.

Although environmental ambitions remain – despite the erroneous claims of certain NGOs and MEPs – the approach has shifted. Farmers, the Commission argues, must be treated as partners in decarbonisation, not culprits, while food companies and retailers will be rightly expected to share the environmental burden. Green incentives will replace penalties, with the EU executive at long last realising that the top-down, “one-size-fits-all” approach embodied by the F2F strategy is simply ineffective. 

This vision marks a decisive departure from the controversial F2F agenda – which Commissioner Hansen has explicitly disavowed – infamous for setting bureaucratic, out-of-touch targets, like halving pesticide use by 2030, without offering realistic pathways. Commissioner Hansen stresses that the new approach strives to achieve necessary reductions “in a different way,” offering “practical solutions” that steer clear of Farm to Fork’s deeply polarising legacy.

Pesticides regulation, controversial Nutri-Score off the table 

In a striking reversal, the EU has officially scrapped the most ambitious—and controversial—F2F component: the overhaul of the EU pesticide regulations. The Sustainable Use of Pesticides Regulation (SUR), first proposed in June 2022, was withdrawn in February 2024 amid fierce farmer protests and mounting right-wing opposition to the European Green Deal. “There is no intention to do anything specific on sustainable pesticides here,” an EU official has bluntly acknowledged, underscoring the policy’s political toxicity.

Equally notable is the quiet abandonment of the EU’s contentious mandatory front-of-pack nutrition label, including France’s Nutri-Score candidate. Making no mention of the label, the new agri-food vision instead prioritises product origin and animal welfare labelling, with the Commission wisely emphasising that consumers need “trustworthy information” amid the recent proliferation of unreliable food package labels like Nutri-Score. 

In recent years, Nutri-Score has become a symbol of Farm to Fork’s flaws: arbitrary, misleading, imposed without adequate consultation and harmful to small producers. Among F2F’s most polarising policies, Nutri-Score has generated widespread opposition from EU farmers and governments such as Portugal, Greece, Czechia and Poland, with the system’s slanted algorithm slapping the traditional PDO products – like cured meats, cheeses and other regional stapes that Hansen now intends to protect with product origin labelling – with unfairly negative ratings, misleading consumers and jeopardising farmers’ livelihoods. 

Delivering on the ground

By taking the sustainable pesticides regulation and nutrition label off the table, the EU executive has offered the bloc’s farmers an immediate win and a foundation for further progress to make life easier for the industry. Looking ahead, Hansen describes the EU’s new agri-food vision as a 15-year roadmap designed to restore stability to a sector plagued by unpredictability. His message is simple: without certainty, there’s no investment—and Europe’s farmers desperately need both. 

More investment in domestic agritech aims to ensure Europe’s farmers can compete globally without sacrificing sustainability. Indeed, future-proofing European agriculture means embracing innovative solutions and providing farmers the funding and technical support to implement them. Brussels wants gene-edited crops and biopesticides to reach the market faster, with scaling up biotechnologies, boosting EU-grown plant proteins and cutting reliance on imported fertilizers equally part of the plan. 

Attracting young people to the rapidly-aging farming sector is also critical, with the Commission promising better pay, fewer bureaucratic hurdles and new revenue streams, from carbon farming to bioenergy and circular economy initiatives. Expected later this year, a generational renewal strategy will make land and financing more accessible to young farmers, while food stockpiles are also under consideration to shield Europe from supply chain shocks. 

The EU’s new “Vision for Agriculture and Food” offers a much-needed reset for Europe’s agri-food sector, placing trust, competitiveness and sustainability at its core. With the right high-level strategy finally established, the true test now lies in translating ambition into tangible results. Farmers urgently need practical support to recover lost competitiveness while upholding Europe’s demanding sustainability standards. After years of policy missteps, this is the EU’s moment to deliver real change.

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At a recent panel discussion, the moderator posed a familiar question: “Why is your company confident that your sustainable product will be successful?” One panelist eagerly responded, “Because it’s what consumers want!”

While optimistic, this response reflects a common misconception: consumer interest in sustainability automatically translates to commercial success. This misconception becomes especially evident when you look beyond consumer markets where purchasing managers need to balance the environmental objectives with other more fundamental things, like budgets and the capabilities of the product.

While it’s undeniable that consumers are increasingly prioritizing sustainability—data reveals that they are willing to pay a 9.7% premium for sustainable products—this demand is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. Successful sustainable products must engage multiple stakeholders across the entire value chain, and the success of sustainable products in 2025 will hinge on their ability to address broader business imperatives beyond mere consumer trends.

Think of it this way: sustainability is not just a passing fad or the latest hot-button issue; it’s a comprehensive business strategy.

The Path to Success: A Holistic Approach

So, what do we mean when we say “broader business imperatives?” Fundamentally, we’re talking about how the business operates, its overall operational efficiency, and how a product addresses key sustainability objectives (like land and water consumption or the carbon impact of production).

At Terviva we’ve learned that some of the reasons investors and partners want to engage with us to plant trees are not just because it’s a compelling story.

They are compelled by the risk mitigation benefits of our genetics and orchard design trials for example, and having patents around our IP for the end products provides proof points that mitigate go to market risk. Here are three critical aspects that industry leaders can learn from our experience in bringing sophisticated partners onboard in their quest for sustainable success:

• Product Innovation: Sustainable products must solve real challenges for stakeholders. This means developing solutions that meet consumer demand, enhance operational efficiency, and reduce environmental impact. Companies should prioritize innovative approaches that regenerate ecosystems, optimize resource use, and create value across the supply chain.

  For example, consider the agricultural sector: companies that invest in regenerative farming practices improve soil health and increase crop yields, addressing consumer demand for sustainable food and efficient production. One study shows that regenerative farming practices can increase farmer profits by 60% on cereal and oilseed crops and can reduce yield losses from extreme weather conditions by half.

• Operational Excellence: Efficiency is key to sustainable success. Organizations must strive to maximize yield while minimizing waste. This involves adopting advanced technologies and practices that enable greater productivity with fewer resources. Companies that focus on operational excellence will meet market demand and contribute positively to environmental goals.

  A striking statistic illustrates this point: a report from the World Economic Forum indicates that companies adopting circular economy principles can reduce operational costs by up to 30%. That figure could be even greater, depending on the industry, with one 2017 study from the World Resources Institute showing that every $1 spent by businesses on reducing food waste results in $14 in operational cost savings.

• Market Integration: Sustainable products must address fundamental business challenges, including carbon emissions, land use, and supply chain dynamics. By aligning sustainability initiatives with core business objectives, companies can create compelling value propositions that resonate with stakeholders at all levels.

  This integrated approach fosters collaboration and drives meaningful progress toward sustainability goals. For instance, automakers that invest in electric vehicle technology respond to consumer demand and tackle regulatory pressures and long-term viability in an increasingly eco-conscious market. Equally, companies that build sustainable, short supply chains tend to be more resilient to the kinds of disruption we saw during and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bigger picture

The key takeaway for industry leaders is clear: sustainable products will flourish in 2025, not just because they are trendy, but because they tackle critical business challenges while delivering conservation benefits. Companies prioritizing holistic solutions—addressing the needs of consumers, businesses, and communities—will be best positioned to lead the charge toward a sustainable future.

In an era where sustainability is a long-term business strategy, embracing this multifaceted approach is essential for long-term success and industry leadership. As we progress, the challenge will be to sustain the strong momentum towards sustainability. By advocating for sustainable business practices and incorporating them into our own operations, we show that you don’t need to choose between the planet and the bottom line.

::Terviva

The post Beyond Consumer Trends: The Holistic Approach to Sustainable Product Success Ashley Kleckner, SVP, Terviva appeared first on Green Prophet.

Most countries are relying on a combination of technological advances and infrastructure changes to meet their goals for greenhouse gas emissions reductions. However, a new model from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev environmental researchers shows that will likely not be enough and additional factors must be considered.

Their model was presented in Nature Sustainability.

Rising global populations and their increased consumption indicate technological and infrastructural changes will not suffice, according to Prof. Raziel Riemer, Prof. Meidad Kissinger and Dr. Na’ama Teschner.

Despite significant investment in technology and infrastructure, population growth and accompanying rising individual consumption will likely offset reductions leading countries to miss their 2050 targets.

The global population is expected to grow by 20% by 2050.

Israel is a particularly interesting case study because of the steady demographic growth the country experiences. However, the model is applicable to all countries.

The model examined the expected implications of population growth, changes in personal consumption habits in Israel, and the implementation of technological developments to reduce emissions related to areas such as electricity, transportation, water, food, and construction.

The findings indicate that despite the large investments in technology and infrastructure, the accepted steps are expected to contribute to reducing emissions per person by 65%, but due to the continued expected population growth, Israel’s carbon footprint will decrease by only 33% while water and land use will increase.

“Despite significant achievements in technology and infrastructure, the expected population growth and the increase in personal consumption may neutralize the reduction in emissions,” explained Prof. Riemer. “Our model shows that achieving 100% electricity generation from renewable sources is an essential step, but additional categories such as food production must also be addressed immediately.”

In addition, the model reveals that demographic processes will increase Israel’s dependence on food imports from abroad in an era when most food already comes from external sources and despite global food insecurity, which is increasing, among other things, because of the climate crisis.

These results emphasize the need to develop innovative agricultural solutions that will help reduce emissions and strengthen national food security.

The post Net Zero by 2050 a pipe dream with current tech advances and population growth appeared first on Green Prophet.

Just days into President Ursula von der Leyen’s second EU Commission, leading European food giants including Danone and Unilever wasted no time in delivering a pointed challenge to new Agriculture and Food Commissioner, Christophe Hansen. In a 9 December letter, the group urges Hansen to develop an ambitious Vision for Agriculture and Food to accelerate Europe’s sustainable food transition, framing this undertaking as equally critical for the industry’s long-term competitiveness.

Central to their appeal is Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform – currently among Brussels’s hot-button issues – with the sector advocating for a new system of environmental payments that increase annually, helping farmers balance green and economic necessities. The Danone-led group is also pushing for boosted funding for young and new farmers to ensure EU agri-food resilience amid the aging sector’s major demographic challenges. Facing a tight budgetary situation, Hansen and von der Leyen will need to convene a wide range of stakeholders to implement this new vision and replace the past mandate’s ‘stick’-heavy regulatory approach with a ‘carrot’ system based on green farming incentives and innovative income support measures.

CAP overhaul anchoring future talks

In his first days in office, Commissioner Hansen has set a bold tone for reform, expressing his support for disbursing a larger share of the bloc’s €387 billion CAP subsidy programme to  small, low-income farmers. Long its largest source of criticism, the CAP continues to  disproportionately reward agribusiness giants, with the largest 20% of farms absorbing 80% of the budget due to the system’s outdated hectare-based payment system. 

Acknowledging the budgetary constraints amid mounting defense and reindustrialisation priorities in Brussels, Hansen has characterised his call for a CAP overhaul that “better targets the support to those most in need” as an “evolution” to re-balance the farming support system in a financially feasible manner. Nevertheless, Hansen’s proposed changes could mark the CAP’s most profound reorientation in its six-decade existence. 

This new approach follows the Commission’s recent compromises to dilute the environmental goals of last mandate’s Farm to Fork strategy, largely in response to the bloc’s sweeping farmers’ protests by farmers and MEP pressure ahead of the European elections. Yet, while the latter essentially amounts to shallow, albeit pro-farmer, political pandering, Hansen’s appetite for genuine innovation bodes well for the sector’s future. 

Echoing Hansen’s strategic focus, the EU Council approved a set of conclusions on 9 December outlining key priorities for CAP revision, with the bloc’s 27 agriculture ministers stressing the need for farmers’ equitable remuneration, fairer and more transparent supply chains value distribution and bolstered competitiveness across the EU’s agri-food sector.

Dismantling lingering obstacles 

This growing momentum for change reflects Brussels’s broader recognition that economic viability must underpin sustainable agricultural practices. On 10 December, Von der Leyen offered her own proposals to bolster the sector’s negotiating position, from mandatory contracts between farmers and food companies to softened competition rules for young farmers and tighter oversight of retail pricing, while Hansen has equally highlighted the exploitative, income-killing practices of major retailers.

Yet, despite these good intentions, the EU executive risks undermining the farmers they aim to support with a lingering vestige of the widely-discredited Farm to Fork agenda: the front-of-package nutrition label proposal. Indeed, the French creates Nutri-Score has once again found itself in a media storm, with French retail giant Carrefour recently mandating that suppliers display the label on all online products, threatening to publicly call out producers that fail to comply.

The EU cannot in good faith back a labelling system which the very supermarkets they aim to rein in are now using to pressure EU producers – particularly given that Nutri-Score has long disproportionately impacted the bloc’s small, local farmers. With its outdated algorithm, Nutri-Score continues to unfairly grade natural, traditional products, such as olive oil, PDO cheeses and cured meats, at the heart of Europe’s culinary heritage and balanced dietary traditions.

Local farmers across Europe have risen against this misguided imposition that undermines their competitiveness and supermarket bargaining power, prompting an expanding group of governments, including those of Portugal, Spain, Greece and Czechia, to snub the label. The agri-food industry’s biggest players, such as Danone, once a key backer of Nutri-Score, are equally starting to drop the label, recognising its misleading impact for consumers.

Even in France, independent nutritional research is increasingly proving Nutri-Score’s opponents right, contrary to the Nutri-Score team’s claims of unanimous scientific backing. The Commission should therefore consistently apply its emerging policy approach and relegate the labelling proposal to the past. 

Scaling innovative new solutions 

The EU executive must instead focus on novel ideas to bolster farmers’ competitiveness while facilitating the sustainable transition. Commissioner Hansen has encouraged the bloc’s farmers to explore “alternative income” streams to enhance the sector’s economic resilience, citing growing crops for biofuels, planting trees for carbon credit payments  and optimising land usage with solar panels and other forms of green energy production. 

The latter avenue, dubbed “agrivoltaics,” has emerged as a particularly promising solution over the past year, with the EU already recognising its potential by including funding and support mechanisms in innovation programmes such as Horizon Europe. Paired with tax incentives and credits for green energy and agricultural practices, the EU can help pave the way for farmers to unlock their full contribution to a “resilient, competitive and sustainable agri-food system European food system” – a mission von der Leyen has assigned the newly-launched European Board on Agriculture and Food tasked with de-polarising the policy debate and renewing ties with farmers. 

The path forward demands bold leadership. The EU Commission will need to embrace the recent call from industry leaders like Danone and Unilever to balance environmental ambition with economic pragmatism, with CAP reform offering the foundation to launch this new agenda. Delivering targeted incentives and greater support for young and small farmers is not just a policy priority, but a necessity for the sector’s future. Now is the time to move beyond restrictive approaches and cultivate genuine cooperation at the heart of Europe’s agri-food system.

The post Will the Common Agricultural Policy see reform under the new Commission? appeared first on Green Prophet.

iyris delivers more resilient and reliable produce.

Iyris, a company from Saudi Arabia founded by foreign nationals, makes it easier to grow the likes of tomatoes – one of the world’s biggest fresh produce and processing crops – in environments increasingly impacted by climate change. The patented process, which tackles the challenges of hot climates, has the potential to revolutionize where crops are grown to address global food security issues. We interviewed one of the founders Mark Tester earlier this year on the innovation he championed. The company used to be marketed under RedSea Farms.

Their newly patented polyploid hybridization grafting process – mimics and significantly accelerates the natural evolutionary process of breeding genetic resilience into plant rootstocks. With this groundbreaking innovation, farmers can address, without having to change the way that they farm their land, their most urgent need: reliable, resistant crops that can mitigate and combat climate change.

The technology makes crops more resilient to stressful abiotic environments (e.g., salt, drought, heat and pests) delivering higher yields for farmers and reducing crop failure risk. The timescale and predictability of genetic resilience trait integration is significantly accelerated compared to previous methods. 

Related: How Daniel Hillel pioneered drip irrigation

Commercial trials of iyris’ current hybrid grafted diploid rootstocks, delivered an average 20-25% tomato plant yield increase over the best performing commercial alternatives. Expectations are that using this patented polyploid breeding process, yield increases will be even more significant. Results to date have demonstrated that polyploids can double yields when compared to diploids. 

Uniquely, iyris’ plant science innovation allows multiple plant traits to be integrated simultaneously. Previously, scientists and breeders targeted single traits and experienced low predictability rates for even a single integration.

“These achievements in plant science are unprecedented and a significant moment in our mission to feed the world sustainably. iyris can now offer farmers a commercially validated and reliable solution addressing the environmental and economic challenges of today – in tomatoes alone, that’s worth billions of dollars annually,” says John Keppler, Executive Chairperson of iyris.

iyris’ published rootstock patent – ‘Polyploidization of interspecific tomato hybrids to create stable and fertile rootstocks’ follows decades of work and research, most recently at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), led by iyris co-founder, Professor Mark Tester – the world’s pre-eminent plant scientist. Professor Tester’s thesis developed from research (with his then – PhD student, Yveline Pailles) into resilient relatives of the tomato growing on sea-facing rock faces in the Galapagos Islands.   

With increasing global temperature, and dwindling freshwater resources, ground-breaking innovative agriculture solutions are vital to break the food-water-energy nexus. The impact of climate change on global farming is becoming starker every year, and global food production is estimated to need to increase by 50%, by 2050, to feed soaring population rates. iyris’ innovation is perfectly timed given its potential to change the way that crops are grown, allow sustainable agriculture in previously unviable territories for farming and protect farmers from crop failure risk. 

Related: Lycored makes kosher and halal, non-animal tomato-based dyes

With its resilient hybrid tomato rootstocks already available in the market, iyris has proven the commercial viability of their technology in open-field trials. iyris has partnerships with two of the world’s largest tomato producers, with more commercial agreements to come. iyris hybrid rootstocks outperformed the best available alternatives across multiple crop seasons, hybrid tomato rootstocks sales have already exceeded 1 million units.  

The market context is extremely positive. The processed tomato market (2023 data) is estimated at US$51.8 billion with 182 million tons produced annually. iyris and Professor Tester have already started research into other plant groups such as eggplants, melons and pumpkins, with the potential to increase commercial results and improve resilience exponentially.

The post Saudi greenhouses to feed desert people appeared first on Green Prophet.

We’ve all heard about the UN Climate Conference. COP29, was the latest and held in Baku. While there is much ado about these UN conferences bringing in diplomats from around the world to hobnob about the planet, most of the work gets done between the events. The UN climate event has a much lesser known cousin and it’s a COP for land, unattractively marketed as the NCCD COP and this year marks NCCD COP16, coinciding with the convention’s 30th anniversary. It will be the first time the event is held in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia, an area most impacted by desertification, land degradation, and drought. 

Saudi is pouring its heart into globalizing and attracting international investment, manufacturing, tourism. Its development of NEOM is the flagship for modernizing and revolutionising the country on the global stage. But leaders are taking note that the West is interested in developing ancient customs like Slow Food in Saudi Arabia and the country has started making electric cars (Ceer), and investing in research teams to study its archeological past. Saudi is putting itself in the center of the stage for football, culture and issues that matter to to the West and East.

Despite the prevailing stereotype that the Kingdom is a desert country, deserts only represent 31.75 percent of its diverse surface features. Still, water is scarce and aquifers are depleted and research institutes like KAUST are investing in new tech in areas like hydroponics (see Red Sea Farms – Iris) to grow food in the desert using brackish water. Saudi Arabia is also undertaking a massive project to plant a million mangrove trees, an effort to stop desertification.

When we were interviewing the Saudi-based Red Sea Farms about impacts against desertification Mark Tester mentioned American-Israeli Daniel Hillel as a force for combatting desertification in the Middle East through his work and research on drip irrigation.

But you came here for Land Cop. So what’s happening and how you can get involved. At this year’s CCD COP16, countries are expected to work with a dual approach, one through a negotiation track focusing on land restoration, drought resilience, and land tenure, and an action agenda focusing on voluntary commitments and actions on land, resilience, and people to reach the following goals:

• Scale up land restoration efforts to restore 1.5 billion hectares of the globe by 2030
• Boost resilience to intensifying droughts, sand and dust storms
• Restore soil health and scale up nature-positive food production
• Secure land rights and promote equity for sustainable land stewardship
• Ensure that land continues to provide climate and biodiversity solutions
• Unlock economic opportunities, including decent land-based jobs for youth

What the UNCCD Focuses on

1- Land Degradation

• Up to 40 percent of the world’s land is degraded.
• The global area impacted by land degradation is approx. 15 million km², more than the entire continent of Antarctica or nearly the size of Russia. It is also expanding each year by about 1 million km²
• 46% of the global land area is classified as drylands, and 75% of Africa is considered dryland. 
• The efficiency of Nitrogen fertilizers is only 46% and 66% for Phosphorus; the rest runs off, with dire consequences for soils.
• Degraded soils lower crop yields and nutritional quality, directly impacting the livelihoods of vulnerable populations.
• Agricultural subsidies often incentivize harmful practices, fueling water overuse and biogeochemical imbalances. Aligning these subsidies with sustainability goals is critical for effective land management.
• Every dollar invested in restoring degraded lands brings between $7-30 in economic returns. Policy and economic incentives are urgently needed to unlock a trillion-dollar restoration economy.  

2- Drought Resilience

According to the International Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA), which is a coalition of 36 countries and 28 international organizations aiming to tackle drought risks:

• Droughts have increased by 29 percent since 2000.
• From 1998 to 2017, drought generated economic losses of about US$124 billion across the world.
• 1.84 billion people are drought-stricken, of which 4.7 per cent are exposed to severe or extreme drought and 85 percent live in low or middle-income countries.
• Investing in drought resilience is one of the most cost-effective actions countries and regions can take, with returns of up to 10 times the initial investment.

3- People & Land Tenure

• Drought, land degradation, and desertification disproportionately affect women, girls, indigenous peoples, local communities, and vulnerable groups like people with disabilities.
• One billion young people living in developing regions are dependent on land and natural resources. Achieving global land restoration commitments requires youth involvement. 
• Areas managed by local communities are characterized by lower rates of deforestation and land degradation. Preserving traditional and local knowledge and recognizing its key role in land restoration is crucial.
• The impacts of land degradation disproportionately affect tropical and low-income countries, both because they are less resilient and because the impacts are concentrated in tropical and arid regions. 
• Women, youth, Indigenous peoples, and local communities also bear the brunt of environmental decline. Women face increased workloads and health risks, while children suffer from malnutrition and educational setbacks.

The UNCCD COP16 (Land COP) will start on Monday, December 2nd. It will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from December 2nd to 13th. It is the first time a desertification COP will be held in the Middle East.

UNCCD COP16 Agenda in Riyadh

• Land Day (4 December): Focus on the role of healthy land in addressing climate change, job creation, and poverty alleviation, with emphasis on nature-based solutions and private sector engagement. 

• Agri-Food Systems Day (5 December): Highlighting sustainable farming practices for resilient crops, healthy soils, and ecosystem protection. 
• Governance Day (6 December): Exploring inclusive land governance and policies to strengthen equitable land management. 
• People’s Day (7 December): Emphasizing the involvement of youth, women, and civil society in land-related decision-making. 
• Science, Technology & Innovation Day (9 December): Aims to accelerate scientific advancements for land health and resilience. 
• Resilience Day (10 December): Focus on policies and technologies that foster resilience to climate change.

Finance Day (11 December): Aims to showcase innovative financial mechanisms supporting land restoration and drought resilience.

The post What is Land “COP” in Saudi Arabia and why should we care? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Egypt-based agritech Viridia Tech has been named the overall winner of the 2024 Mega Green Accelerator, awarded the $100,000 grand prize in Saudi Arabia for their impactful data analytics platform, which helps farmers grow crops more sustainably and efficiently.

Viridia Tech has been named the overall winner of the 2024 Mega Green Accelerator, following an exciting industry Demo Day held in Riyadh where eight startups from across the Middle East and North Africa region showcased innovative solutions addressing food security, clean energy transitions, and the circular economy.

Read more: Red Sea farms from KAUST grows food with brackish water

The Mega Green Accelerator, launched in 2023 by PepsiCo, SABIC, AstroLabs, and eleven other strategic partners, received over 350 submissions. The eight selected startups participated in a six-month programme of trainings and workshops, mentorship from business leaders, and opportunities to network, scale their businesses, and gain access to investors.

“PepsiCo has been a key partner in the region for 70 years, and we remain committed to supporting progress and empowering the next generation. Through MENA Innovates, we are focused on driving meaningful change by backing startups and advancing broader initiatives that promote innovation across the region. We look forward to seeing how the startups will contribute to a more sustainable future,” said Wael Ismail, Vice President of Corporate Affairs, PepsiCo AMESA (Africa, Middle East, and South Asia).

At the Demo Day, Egypt-based Viridia Tech was awarded the $100,000 grand prize for their artificial intelligence and data analytics platform, which provides real-time insights and recommendations to help farmers grow crops more efficiently and sustainably and forecast yields accurately.

Foreign-founded but Saudi Arabia-based Mirai Solar out of KAUST produces an innovative solar-powered shade system, received the $30,000 second place prize.

The Mega Green Accelerator is part of PepsiCo’s MENA Innovates programs, which champion entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainability through a series of events and initiatives that celebrate groundbreaking ideas and inspire future leaders.

Eight startups, including Mrüna and The Surpluss (UAE), AHYA TECHNOLOGIES (KSA), YY ReGen (Lebanon), P-VITA (Egypt), and Kumulus (Tunisia), were selected for this year’s edition of the Accelerator, led by PepsiCo, SABIC, AstroLabs, and eleven strategic partners.

None of the companies in the competition included submissions from Israel – a proven, global leader in agtech, solar and water tech. Green Prophet calls on Saudi Arabia aiming to be a global tourism and business hub by 2030 to fight antisemitism in all its forms, including the exclusion of Jewish candidates from MENA prizes and exhibitions. It is common for the Arab world to circumvent antisemitism by inviting “Palestinians” who can be Arab Israelis, without letting the Jewish Israeli members of the MENA region participate. Decades of quiet antisemitism are no longer acceptable in contests and calls to actions by EU-funded, UN-funded and privately-funded contests.

A few leading cleantech inventions from Israel include CropX, Ormat Geothermal, and SolarEdge, solar energy technology.

About the start-ups participating in the 2024 edition

Curious to know more about this accelerator hosted by PepsiCo, click here for last year’s winners which include companies from Lebanon, Jordan, and the UAE.

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