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  • Publication | 2026
Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) Communiqué 2026
Global Food and Nutrition Security

The 2026 Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) focused on the theme “Water. Harvests. Our Future.”

Agriculture ministers from 60 countries agreed that addressing water scarcity and competing uses requires placing agriculture at the core of water policy and governance.

In the final ministerial communiqué, adopted at the Berlin Agriculture Ministers’ Conference, the ministers affirmed that, as population growth drives rising food demand while water resources continue to decline, effective water governance has never been more essential for the human rights to water and food.

In the water-food security nexus, the Communiqué places agriculture at the center of solutions.

The Communiqué includes a call for actions, in particular:

  • Ministers commit to fostering sustainable water harvesting, retention and storage for food production. They underline the importance of sustainably managing water in the soil through regenerative and conservation agriculture, agroecology and other innovative approaches, agroforestry, sustainable land management, and practices that prevent compaction and degradation and improve infiltration and soil health. They underscore the relevance of nature-based solutions and climate-resilient practices, and of wetlands and other natural ecosystems in the water cycle, in buffering water availability (point 6);

  • They underline the vital role that sustainable forest management and forest conservation and restoration play in the overall stability of the water cycle, with their direct influence on water quality, availability and accessibility for agricultural production and aquatic ecosystems (point 8);

  • They insist that agriculture and aquaculture must contribute to further preventing and reducing water pollution (point 9).

  • They commit to promote genetic diversity, plant variety protection and plant and animal breeding in order to enhance drought and salinity tolerance and to foster water-use efficiency (point 10).

  • They emphasise the crucial role of agricultural research, innovation, artificial intelligence, digital tools, technologies and enhanced water-related information systems as key elements for improving the sustainability and efficiency of agricultural water use (point 11).