Coming back from the European Carbon Farming Summit in Padua on 17-19 March, one thing is clear: carbon farming and certification are entering a new phase. The conversation is shifting: from pilots and promises to systems, standards, and scalability.
Hajna Tijssen from Oncra noted down a few reflections of the summit:
1. Carbon farming as a catalyst for change
Beyond carbon, this space can drive broader transformation across food systems and landscapes. But this requires real collaboration, across farmers, tech, science, finance, and policy, and structures that work at farm level, not only at scale.
2. MRV is the bottleneck (and the opportunity)
Robust, cost-effective MRV is becoming the key enabler. Hybrid approaches (remote sensing, models, targeted field data) are gaining traction, but interoperability and trust remain challenges.
Source Photos: Carbon Farming Summit
3. Data fragmentation is holding the field back
There’s no shortage of tools, but a lack of shared standards and connected systems continues to create friction for scaling projects.
4. Finance is cautious but evolving
Blended finance is growing, yet credibility and transparency remain essential to unlock investment.
5. Standardisation vs. local reality
EU frameworks are emerging, but carbon farming remains inherently context-specific. The challenge is balancing consistency with flexibility.
For Oncra, this reinforces the need for:
- Open, interoperable data infrastructures: the need of data that can be used for the certification of carbon farming projects, such as aboveground biomass datasets.
- Integrated carbon + co-benefits accounting: even though we are primarily certifying carbon, taking into account further benefits is always at our core, we only want to support projects that truly create more life.
- Practical tools for project developers: extensive MRV has been the bottleneck for many small scale projects, by simplifying the application process, accessibility increases
- Continued alignment with CRCF: important to have an overall framework in the market on an EU level that projects can adhere to, to create trust for operators, buyers and all other actors.
Hajna Tijssen represented Oncra at the summit. Feel free to reach out to her for further insights: hajna@climatecleanup.org.