Mr Ahmad Mukhtar

Examining the full spectrum of non-financial conditions required for regenerative agriculture to accelerate across MENA: From coherent regulatory frameworks and policy incentives to targeted extension services, capacity-building programmes, and knowledge transfer pathways that meet farmers where they are. Regulatory frameworks and capacity building are treated here as mutually dependent: policy only generates uptake when matched by the knowledge and skills to act on it.

Panel Topics:

● Regulatory landscape mapping: Carbon credits, ecosystem service payments, and regenerative agriculture incentives across MENA: Identifying gaps and harmonisation opportunities

● Policy instruments that reward regenerative practices: Subsidy reform, market access provisions, and trade policy as levers for systems change

● Extension services reimagined: How farmer support infrastructure must evolve to accompany regenerative transitions across diverse MENA farming contexts?

● Capacity building that reaches smallholders: Targeted programmes addressing knowledge gaps at the field level, from soil health literacy to practice implementation

● Knowledge transfer between research and practice: Mechanisms that translate scientific findings into farmer decision-making and government programme design

● MENA-specific certifi cation and standards: Building frameworks appropriate for arid-climate conditions rather than importing temperate-climate models

● Farmer voices: Smallholder perspectives on what enabling conditions are actually missing on the ground