From 17 to 19 March 2026, the European Carbon Farming Summit 2026 brought together leading voices from policy, research, private sector and practitioners to discuss the role of carbon farming in Europe’s climate and agricultural transition. Hosted in Padua, the summit marked an important moment as carbon farming continually moves towards implementation with plenty of open questions still to discuss.

Ecologic Institute, as part of the CREDIBLE and CAFAMORE consortia, has actively contributed to the programme, sharing insights from its work on carbon markets, agricultural finance, and land-use governance.

Key takeaways:

• Carbon farming can support the agricultural transition under the CRCF, but only if it sets a high bar for trust and ambition. This means moving away from rewarding isolated practices and moving towards systemic farming approaches that position farmers as stewards of climate-resilient landscapes.
• The conversation has shifted from the questions of how to supply carbon credits to the question of who will buy them and why. Creating voluntary demand remains a major challenge. The proposed EU Buyers Club came up frequently at the summit, which potentially can be a useful stepping stone, but ultimately it should act as a learning mechanism to unlock stronger, future compliance markets.
• There’s ongoing confusion around co-claiming, scope 3 reporting, SBTI and how these different frameworks can work together. Clarity is urgently needed for both suppliers and buyers of carbon farming certificates to build credibility and scale impact.
• Geopolitical instability and price shocks of agricultural inputs such as synthetic fertiliser or urea have entered the discussion on how to use carbon farming as a vehicle towards resilient and independent farming systems based on regional value chains.
• Carbon finance alone is often insufficient. Blended finance, public support, and multiple revenue streams are essential to make carbon farming projects viable.
• There has been a growing discussion around how carbon farming and nature-positive approaches can complement each other, offering a more holistic value proposition for both farmers and ecosystems, but with lots of open questions still ahead.

In his panel, Hugh McDonald discussed developments in carbon markets and policy frameworks for carbon farming. In a session on finance streams for the agricultural transition, Aaron Scheid explored how different financing streams can support the agricultural transition, including how integrated landscape finance can bundle activities across farms and ecosystems towards climate-resilient agricultural landscapes. During the poster session, Jonathan Gardiner presented research on the risks, opportunities and policy implications of integrating temporary carbon units into EU agri-food climate policy. 

The summit offered a platform for dialogue among researchers, policymakers, businesses, and practitioners working at the intersection of agriculture, climate, and land management. The conference was funded by the European Union through the Horizon Europe programme as part of the project Credible. The yearly summits will be continued in the future, organised by the CREDIBLE 2.0 consortium, of which Ecologic Institute is again a partner.