Belém, Brazil | November 12-14, 2025
For the first time in our history, Innovative Solutions for Decision Agriculture (iSDA) took our place at COP30, the world’s most important climate conference. As delegates from nearly 200 countries gathered in Belém, Brazil, at the very edge of the Amazon rainforest, we delivered a powerful message: building climate resilience for Africa’s smallholder farmers isn’t a future promise. It needs to happen now, at scale.
Why COP30 Mattered for African Agriculture
COP30 represented a pivotal moment in the global climate response, with world leaders, scientists, and civil society gathering to accelerate implementation of the Paris Agreement and mobilise $1.3 trillion annually in climate finance. For Africa’s 33 million smallholder farmers, the stakes were high. They feed a continent while facing the harshest impacts of a crisis they didn’t create: erratic rainfall, degraded soils, and increasingly unpredictable growing seasons. Yet Africa’s farmers had been largely invisible in global climate conversations.
Our Message: Climate Adaptation Is Already Working
While much of the climate discourse focused on future scenarios and ambitious targets, iSDA arrived in Belém with evidence of what is already delivering results on the ground. Our Virtual Agronomist AI-advisory tool has reached over 250,000 farmers across seven African countries, delivering an average 1.6x yield increase at just one-tenth the cost of traditional agricultural extension services. This isn’t experimental. This is proven, scalable climate adaptation in action.
Virtual Agronomist combines our continent-wide soil health map (iSDAsoil), advanced AI, and WhatsApp to deliver hyperlocal, plot-specific agronomic advice to farmers wherever they are. From personalised nutrient plans to pest diagnostics, weather-responsive planting guidance to harvest optimisation, farmers receive the knowledge they need, exactly when they need it.
The result? Climate-ready farmers who can adapt, grow, and thrive even as conditions change around them.
Bruce Kisitu, our Director of Operations, Africa, attended a leader-level event featuring ministers, climate finance executives, producers, and innovators. As agriculture and food systems took center stage at COP30, this gathering shone a spotlight on scalable, impactful agricultural innovations from across the globe.
Programme Lineup: Three Powerful Moments
iSDA successfully executed our programme, delivering three core messages across the conference:
Theme: Scaling Resilience: How AI Is Powering Farmer Productivity Across Africa
Date: November 12 at 10:00 AM (Brasilia Time)
Hosts: iSDA Virtual Agronomist, TomorrowNow and the Gates Foundation
This served as our flagship moment at COP30. Together with our partner, TomorrowNow, whose advanced agro-met intelligence is intergrated into Virtual Agronomist, delivering weather forecasts and climate-smart planting window advice to farmers, we demonstrated how AI and data science are delivering real, measurable resilience for smallholder farmers. This session spotlighted the power of partnership and the “fund what works” approach: proven innovations ready to scale from pilots to national and continental rollout.
Theme: AI for Climate-Resilient Soils: Scaling Digital Agronomy Across Africa
Date: November 13 at 6:30 PM (Brasilia Time)
Organisers: iSDA Virtual Agronomist
Hosts: CGIAR and FAO
Healthy soils are the first line of defense against climate shocks. We showed how soil mapping, combined with data-led, plot-specific agronomy supports smarter, climate-ready farming, supporting the regeneration of soils. Because resilience truly starts underground.
This panel also saw the announcement of, the expansion of digital soil health advisory across West Africa, as we partner with IITA and the West Africa Soil Hub to bring Virtual Agronomist to Nigeria.
Theme: Climate Finance for Soil Health
Date: November 14 at 2:00 PM (Brasilia Time)
Hosts: Action on Food Pavilion
Climate finance must flow to where it matters most. Our Director of Operations, Africa, Bruce Kisitu, joined this critical panel to position iSDA not just as a soil-science and agronomy leader, but as a partner ready to scale through blended finance and systems integration. The discussion focused on connecting climate capital to climate solutions that work.
Looking Ahead: From Belém to the Field
Our time at COP30 affirmed what we’ve always known: the world is ready to invest in solutions that work. Africa’s farmers don’t need sympathy or distant promises. They need tools like Virtual Agronomist: science-backed, actionable, and meeting them where they are.
As we return from Belém to our work across the continent, we carry forward a renewed commitment and an expanded network of partners ready to scale climate resilience together. The conversations that began at the edge of the Amazon will translate into expanded reach, deeper impact, and stronger futures for hundreds of thousands more farmers.
COP30 wasn’t just about being seen. It was about being recognised as what we are: a proven, scalable pathway to climate adaptation for the smallholder farmers who need it most. The stage has been set. Now the real work continues, one farmer, one field, one harvest at a time.
